
Class i__i 

Book 

Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



' \ 




WILLIAM MATHEWS, LL.D, 



GETTING ON IN THE WORLD ; 



OR, 



HINTS ON SUCCESS IN LIFE. 



WILLIAM MATHEWS, LL.D., 

AUTHOR OF " WORDS ", THEIR TT8E AND ABUSE," " ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
"HOURS WITH MEN AND BOOKS,'' ETC., ETC. 



Fungarvice cotis, acutum 
Reddere quEe f errum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. 

Horace. 

Do not shun this maxim as commonplace. On the contrary, take the closest 
heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are 
yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world. 
—Arthur Helps. 



SIXTY-THIRD THOUSAND, 



CHICAGO: 
SCOTT, FORESMAN & COMPANY. 

1896. 



23804 



% 



^ 



\ 



C\«U 



Library of Co- 

Copies Reci 
JUL 23 1900 

Copy right entry 

^23,^0 

Q, 18-/39- 

SEC0N0 COPY. 

Delivered to 
ORDER DM 

AUG 1 1900 



according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 
BY SAMUEL C. GRIGGS, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



868 






Quit yourselves like men. —1 Samuel iv. 9. 

A sacred burden is the life ye bear, 
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, 
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly. 
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, 
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win. 

Frances Anne Kemble. 

In general I have no patience with people who talk about "the thoughtlessness of 
youth " indulgently ; I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, and the in- 
dulgence due to that. When a man has done his work, and nothing can any way be 
materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate, if he will ; 
but what excuse can you find for wilfulness of thought at the very time when every 
crisis of fortune hangs on your decisions ? A youth thoughtless, when all the happi- 
ness of his home forever depends on the chances or the passions of an hour ! A 
youth thoughtless, when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a 
moment ! A youth thoughtless, when his every action is a foundation-stone of 
future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death ! Be thoughtless iu 
any after years, rather than now, — though, indeed, there is only one place where a 
man may be nobly thoughtless, his deathbed. Nothing should ever be left to be 
done there. — Ruskin. 

There is no fault nor folly of my life that does not rise up against me, and take 
away my joy and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of understanding. And 
every past effort of my life, every gleam of rightness or good in it, is with me now, to 
help me in my grasp of this art and its vision. — lb. 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are these, " It might have been ! " 

"VThittier. 

The well-known, worn-out topics of consolation and of encouragement are become 
trite because they are reasonable. — Richard Sharp. 



PREFACE 



THE origin of this book, which will account for some 
of its peculiarities of style, is as follows. In the 
early part of 1871 the author wrote for the Chicago Trib- 
une a series of articles on the subject here treated, after 
the publication of which a considerable number of per- 
sons in different parts of the Northwest expressed a wish 
that they should be gathered into a volume. This led to 
their revision, and the addition of nearly twice as much 
new matter, the whole forming the work which is now 
offered to the public. 

That the book has many imperfections, the author is 
well aware ; they are due partly to the fact that it has 
been written by economizing moments of leisure snatched 
from professional labors, and, to use a phrase of Milton, 
with his left hand. Upon a subject which so many pens 
have discussed, it is, of course, hardly possible to say 
anything absolutely new; the most that a writer can 
hope to do is to recombine and present in novel and at- 
tractive forms, with fresh illustrations, so as to impress 
persons who have not been impressed before, thoughts 
which have substantially been repeated from the days of 



VI PREFACE. 

Solomon to those of Smiles and "Titcomb." Some of 
the topics, however, have been less hackneyed than others ; 
as, for example, the important one of " Eeserved Power, " 
— in writing the chapter upon which the author has been 
materially aided by some of the suggestions contained in 
" The Army of the Eeserve," an eloquent and scholarly 
address delivered at Bowdoin College, in 1862, by Hon. 
B. F. Thomas, LL.D. 

If this book shall serve to rouse to honorable effort 
any young man who is wasting his time and energies 
through indifference to life's prizes, — to cheer, stimulate, 
and inspire with enthusiasm any one who is desponding 
through distrust of his own abilities, — or to reveal to 
any one who is puzzled to discover the path to success 
and usefulness the art of " getting on " to the goal of his 
wishes, — the author will feel himself abundantly repaid 
for his labors. Doubtless there are many persons who are 
better qualified by their worldly knowledge to discuss the 
subject here considered ; but, unhappily, the most suc- 
cessful men do not reveal the secret of their successes ; 
and if we do not reject criticisms on paintings from men 
who have never handled a brush, nor refuse to follow the 
directions of a guide-post though it has never hopped 
off upon its one leg and travelled the road to which it 
points, a young man who is beginning life may accept 
the hints of a well-wisher whose knowledge of his needs 
has been derived from observation, rather than from ex- 
perience. 

Chicago, October 9, 1872. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 

Success and Failure . . 1 

CHAPTER II. 
Good and Bad Luck 19 

CHAPTER III. 
Choice of a Profession 34 

CHAPTER IY. 
Physical Culture 52 

CHAPTER V. 
Concentration, or Oneness of Aim 65 

CHAPTER YI. 
Self-Reliance 83 

CHAPTER VII. 
Originality in Aims and Methods . . . . . 97 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Attention to Details 107 

CHAPTER IX. 
Practical Talent 115 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 
Decision 12T 

CHAPTER XI. 
Manner 141 

CHAPTER XII. 
Business Habits 159 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Self- Advertising 178 

CHAPTER XIY. 

TnE Will and the Way . . . . . . .188 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Will and the Way (continued) 221 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Reserved Power 238 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Economy of Time . . 268 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Money, — its Use and Abuse 280 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Mercantile Failures 304 

CHAPTER XX. 
Overwork and Under-Rest 329 

CHAPTER XXI. 
True and False Success 346 

INDEX 353 



GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER I. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 



Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of 
which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done 
his best. — Sydney Smith. ) 
/ Men must know that in this theatre of man's life it remaineth only to God 
and angels to be lookers-on. — Bacon. 

Toil alone could not have produced the " Paradise Lost " or the " Prin- 
cipia." The born dwarf never grows to the middle size. — Rev. R. A. 
Willmott. 

/'The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, 
(without a thought of fame. — Henry W. Longfellow. 

TN attending a concert in one of our large cities, did you ever 
X- observe the wide chasm that separates the first and second 
violinists of the orchestra? One is all pomp, fire, bustle, 
enthusiasm, energy. Now waving his bow high in the air, he 
silently guides the harmony ; now rapidly tapping on the 
rest-board, he hurries the movement ; and again, bringing the 
violin to his shoulder, he takes the leading strain, and high 
above the crash of sound, above the shrill blast of the trumpet, 
the braying of horns, the ear-piercing notes of the fife, the 
sobbing of oboes, the wailing of violoncellos, and all the thun- 
ders of the orchestra, are heard, distinct and clear, the shrieking 
notes of the first violin. Dressed in unimpeachable broadcloth, 
with kids and linen of immaculate purity, stamping his feet, 
wagging his head, nodding earnestly to the right and to the 
left, and beating time with mad energy, he enters heart and 
1 



2 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

soul into the music, oblivious of all things else ; and all 
because he is the leader, and plays the first violin. Standing 
by his side, but upon a lower platform, and before a lower 
music-rest, is a patient, careworn man, who saws quietly on 
the strings, with the air rather of the hired laborer than of the 
enthusiast. His eye you never see in a fine frenzy rolling, 
glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, nor does 
his facile hand run off in roulades of melody ; he never wags 
his head, nor stamps Ins foot, nor labors to wreak his thoughts 
upon expression ; but steadily and conscientiously he pours a 
rich undercurrent of harmony into the music, which few hear, 
fewer care for, but without which, losing the charm of contrast, 
it would be as dreary as the droning of a bagpipe, as monoto- 
nous as a picture which is all lights and no shadows. With 
his eye fixed on the notes, he scrapes away with diligence, not 
with enthusiasm ; he is moved, not by the inspiration of a 
master, but by the reflection that he is exchanging his notes 
for dollars, and that, with each quaver, he earns so much bread 
and butter for his family. Yet this automaton — this musical 
machine, that plays its part so mechanically, with apparently 
as little interest in the result as Babbage's calculating-machine 
in the solution of a mathematical problem — may have been 
endowed by nature with as much genius and fire as that thun- 
dering Jupiter of the orchestra, the leader ; but, alas ! he plays 
second fiddle. 

The world is an orchestra, and men are players. All of us 
are playing some part in the production of life's harmony, — 
some wielding the baton, and fired by the sympathy of lookers- 
on ; others feeling that they are but second fiddles, humbled 
by conscious inferiority, and drudging on as the treadmill horse 
plods through his monotonous task. Our object will be, in 
this series of papers, to show the reason of this inequality, and 
especially how, whether one plays first or second fiddle, or is 
gifted with talents that qualify him only to strike the cymbals 
or beat the drum, he may magnify his calling, and act well his 
part, " where all the honor lies." 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 6 

We purpose, in this volume, to discuss the subject of suc- 
cess in life ; or, in other words, to answer the question which 
every young man, as he enters upon his career of self-depen- 
dence, is likely to ask of himself or others, " How shall I get 
on in the world 1 " The theme is as old as the human race t 
yet, though volumes have been written on it, it is still new 
to each successive generation, and assuming, as it does, new 
phases with the ceaseless changes in society, must be inex- 
haustible. Out of the thousand topics which it offers for con- 
sideration, we shall select only those of vital interest, just 
notions of which are indispensable to every young man who 
would act well his part in the great drama of life. To the 
mass of men, and especially to those who are about embarking 
on the voyage of active life, no theme can be of deeper interest 
than this. A man sailing on tibfct voyage has been compared 
to a vessel of war leaving port under sealed orders. He knows 
not, but as the ways of Providence are disclosed, to what ports 
he must go, or on what seas he must sail. The dangers of the 
voyage — the sunken reefs, the icebergs, or the stormy capes, 
which may be his ruin — are unknown. Through perilous 
storms and treacherous calms must he steer his unknown course, 
nor is there any exact chart laid down for the voyage. No man 
ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over 
before him \ every man who starts on the ocean of life arches 
his sails to an untried breeze. Like Coleridge's mariner, "he 
is the first that ever burst into that lonely sea." 

In looking about among the circle of our acquaintances, we 
are surprised to see how few have made the voyage successfully, 
that fewer still have reached the ports for which they sailed. 
Many a shallop, which sailed out of harbor noiselessly and un- 
noticed, has anchored at last safely in port; many a noble 
argosy, freighted with precious hopes, and launched with stream- 
ers flying, amid the salvos of artillery and the huzzas of thou- 
sands, has sunk beneath the waves. To what impotent con- 
clusions, indeed, do young men of brilliant parts frequently 
come ! What becomes of the foremost boy at the academy, 



4 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

of the "senior wrangler" of the university, of the champion 
of the debating club, the law school, or the lyceum 1 Where 
are to be found, in the various walks of life, all of the geniuses 
to which almost every village periodically gives birth? All 
along the shores of the great ocean, on whose currents we are 
borne with resistless sweep, are strewn the wrecks of those 
whose embarkation was seemingly under the very star of hope. 
On whatever shoals or hidden rocks they may have struck, it 
matters not to them ; only one voyage is vouchsafed, and failure 
is irretrievable : but to all who come after them, an explanation 
of the causes of disaster is of deep interest, and may save many 
from a similar fate. 

Before discussing, however, the causes of shipwreck, let us 
anticipate a few of the objections that may meet us at the 
threshold. And, first, there are those who deny that success 
is pre-eminently desirable, or that it is by any means identical 
with happiness. No doubt there are many enjoyments outside 
of worldly success. After all, it is pleasant to lie in bed till 
eight o'clock in the morning, instead of turning out at five ; it 
is pleasant to hug the chimney-corner, instead of breasting the 
pitiless storm ; it is pleasant to pass one's evenings in the 
bosom of a family ; pleasant, too, to taste the difference be- 
tween winter and spring, fine sunsets and storms, town and 
country. The path of success, never "a primrose path of dal- 
liance," is steeper and more thorny to-day than ever before. 
Never before in the world's history was competition in every 
calling and pursuit so fierce as now ; never did success, in more 
than a moderate degree, demand for its attainment such a union 
of physical and intellectual qualities, — of alertness, activity, 
prudence, persistence, boldness, and decision, — as in this latter 
half of the nineteenth century. Carlyle truly says that " the 
race of life has become intense ; the runners are treading upon 
each other's heels ; woe be to him who stops to tie his shoe- 
strings ! " This fact alone is sufficient to show the absurdity 
of the opinion sometimes advanced, that success is not, as a 
general thing, a test of merit. In spite of the occasional tri- 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 5 

umphs of mediocre men and charlatans, the rule still holds, 
that the men who make their way to the front, becoming rich 
or famous by force of their personal characters, must have 
something more in them than impudence, and even the Hud- 
sons and Fisks could not have won their positions without 
some sterling qualities, however alloyed Avith their opposites. 

Again, it must be confessed that success does not always 
yield the happiness expected; that the prizes of life, like the 
apples of Sodom, often turn to ashes in the grasp. Of every 
object of human pursuit, however dazzling in the distance, it 
may be said as the poet has said of woman, — 

" The lovely toy, so fiercely sought, 
Hath lost its charm by being caught." 

But persons who reason thus concerning human happiness for- 
get its true nature. They forget that it does not consist in 
the gratification of the desires, nor in that freedom from care, 
that imaginary state of repose, to which most men look so 
anxiously forward, and with the prospect of which their labors 
are lightened, but which is more languid, irksome, and insup- 
portable than all the toils of active life. True, the objects we 
pursue with so much ardor are insignificant in themselves, and 
never fulfil our extravagant expectations ; but this by no means 
proves them unworthy of pursuit. Properly to estimate their 
value, we must take into view all the pleasurable emotions 
they awaken prior to attainment. 

" Man never is, but always to be blest," 

says the poet. That is, his true happiness consists in the 
means, and not in the end ; in acquisition, and not in possession. 
The principle and source of it is not the gratification of the 
desires, nor does its amount depend on the frequency of such 
gratifications. He who cultivates a tree derives far more satis- 
faction from the care he bestows upon it than from the fruit. 
Give the huntsman his game, and the gambler the money that 
is staked, that they both may enjoy, without care or perplexity, 
the objects they pursue, and they will smile at your folly. 



6 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

" If my son," said a certain wealthy man, whose wasteful heir 
was fast dissipating the fruits of his exertions, "can take as 
much pleasure in spending my property as I have derived from 
acquiring it, I will not complain." Lessing declared that if 
he had been offered the choice between the possession of truth 
and the pleasure of seeking for it, he would unhesitatingly have 
preferred the latter. A state of constant fruition would be, 
according to our present notions, a state truly lamentable, since 
it would preclude, in a great degree, the pleasing emotions that 
spring from hope and expectation, and thus extinguish the 
lights that principally serve to cheer our path through life. 
Were all our desires satiated at their birth, or were we always 
satisfied with our present condition, in either case, as there 
would be nothing to draw forth our active energies, life would 
stagnate. In short, man was made for action, and life is a 
mere scene for the exercise of the mind and the engagements 
of the heart, — a scene where the most important occupations 
are, in a sense, but graver species of amusement, and where, so 
long as we take pleasure in the pursuit of an object, it matters 
but little that we attain it not, or that it fades when acquired. 
Hope is, indeed, a deceitful enchantress ; but she sheds a sweet 
radiance on the stream of life, and never exerts her magic 
except to our advantage. We seldom attain what she beckons 
us to pursue ; but her deceptions resemble those which the 
dying husbandman in the fable practised upon his sons, 
who, by telling them of a hidden mass of wealth, which he 
had buried in a secret place in his vineyard, led them so sedu- 
lously to delve the ground, and turn up the earth about the 
roots of the vines, that they found, indeed, a treasure, though 
not in gold, in wine. 

The truth is, we owe a large part of our happiness to our 
mistakes. As in the natural world, it would be only necessary 
to improve our vision to a higher degree of acuteness, to make 
the sublimest scenes in nature and the most magnificent works 
of art appear horrid and deformed, so in the moral, too nicely 
to consider the intrinsic worth of the objects we pursue, will 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 7 

infallibly lead to a wrong estimate of the value of human 
life. 

But whatever the views we may take of this subject, one 
thing is quite certain, and that is, that if happiness is not found 
in success, it is not found in failure. It is a sad thing to feel, 
even when we have done our best, — when the stinging sense 
of time and talents wasted is absent, — that we have foundered 
in our earthly voyage j to feel that we have ingloriously stranded^ 
while those who set sail with us pass by with streamers flying 
and swelling sail. Mediocre men often mistake aspiration for 
inspiration ; they have first-class ambition along with third-rate 
powers ; and these coming together make a most ill-matched 
pair of legs, which bear a person along awkwardly in his path 
of life, and expose him to endless mortifications. Philosophy 
or religion may take the sting out of disappointment ; but gen- 
erally the impossibility of connecting the ideas of felicity and 
failure is so great, that though examples abound to show that 
success is not happiness, it is yet clear that it is essential to it. 
The moments in a man's life when, Alexander like, he feels 
that the world has no more prizes to be coveted, are few indeed. 
It has been truly said that an object to be desired is at once 
the pleasure and the torment of life ; sometimes a great object 
to be steadily pursued, all else being made subservient to it ; or, 
more commonly, a succession of minor objects, rising, one after 
another, in endless succession. Clf Keats did somewhat exag- 
gerate when he declared that " there is no fiercer hell than 
the failure in a great attempt," yet it must be admitted that the 
pleasure of a long-sought, ardently desired success, dreamed of 
by night and toiled for by day, is, probably, as complete as 
anything this side of heaven ; and it is universally felt to be 
a compensation for all toil or hardship ; it is well, if not for 
any sin. ) 

Again, while success is necessary to happiness, it must be 
remembered that the term is a relative one ; in other words, 
that there are many degrees of success, among which the highest 
are neither attainable by all, nor essential to felicity. A man 



8 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

may be a very successful lawyer, though he should fail of becom- 
ing Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ; 
a successful physician, though far inferior in skill to a Brodie or 
Magendie ; a successful merchant, though he may never accu- 
mulate a tithe of the wealth of a Stewart, a Girard, or an Astor. 
All this, we are aware, is obvious enough ; and we should not 
think of repeating such truisms, were not the contrary so often 
explicitly or implicitly taught in so many " Young Men's Own 
Books," " Student's Manuals," and articles in popular newspa- 
pers. As if restlessness, dissatisfaction with its lot, contempt 
for reasonable and attainable successes, were altogether wanting 
in Young America, our youth are hardly out of their jackets 
ere they are urged by a certain class of writers and lecturers 
to look with scorn upon, and to struggle out of, the sphere or 
place in life to which, if a lowly one, Providence has assigned 
them, and to become " great men," that is, governors, mem- 
bers of Congress, foreign ministers, major-generals, railroad 
kings, et id omne, which they are told they may become, if 
they only mil to do it. Forgetting that all callings are alike 
honorable, if pursued with an honorable spirit ; that it is the 
heart only which degrades, the intention carried into the work, 
and not the work a man does ; that the most despised calling 
may be made honorable by the honor of its professors ; ^hat a 
blacksmith may be a man of polished manners, and a million- 
tiaire a clown ; that a shoemaker may put genius and taste into 
his work, while a lawyer may cobble ; V- these writers are contin- 
ually pointing to the Herschels and the Stevensons, the Astors 
and the Angelos, and telling the young that they, too, may 
shine as stars in the firmament of art, science, or mammon, 
provided that they will scorn delights, " outwatch the bear," 
concentrate their energies, and convert their intellectual dia- 
mond dust into a diamond. 

From the general spirit of these appeals, one would suppose 
the writers to believe that every human being at birth is poten- 
tially a Shakespeare or a jSTewton, and that, provided he is 
educated properly, and labors long and hard enough, he may 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 9 

astonish the world with " Hamlets " and " Principias." Genius 
these writers are fond of defining with Buffon as " patience," 
and they will quote to you with gusto the saying of Newton, 
that, if he differed from other men, it was only by " patient 
thought." A great orator, like Clay or Chatham ; a wondrous 
musical composer, like Handel or Eossini ; a great architect of 
buildings, like Wren, or a more marvellous architect of periods, 
like De Quincey, — all the great lights of physical science, the 
superior intelligences of art and literature, — have attained to 
eminence by steps easily traceable by themselves, and which 
all other men may follow, if they will but concentrate their 
efforts upon one point, and not fritter away their resources in 
a variety of pursuits. Let us, it is said, but search into and 
analyze the causes of that excellence which in its intensity has 
dazzled and confounded us, — let us but trace it through the 
various minor stages through which it has passed to its present 
summit of power, — and we shall find that to labor unceasing 
does it owe its splendor, and that under similar circumstances, 
with equal advantages of cidture, equal incentives, and as firm 
a will, there are few persons who could not present the same 
result. Shelley, we may infer, hardly exaggerated, when he 
said that the Almighty had given men arms long enough to 
reach the stars, if they would only put them out. /If the 
young man will but exert himself to the utmost, say these 
writers, there is no height of greatness to which he may not 
soar. Ah ! but how immense is that " if ! " It is the castle 
in which these possible Mirabeaus, unlike the thunderer of the 
French tribune, are always confined. " If my aunt had been 
a man, she would have been my uncle " ! They forget, who 
talk thus, that the power of patient labor was the very essence 
of Newton's genius ; that continuity and concentration of 
thought are in exact proportion to the size and vitality of the 
thinking principle. What a man does is the real test of what 
a man is ; and to talk of what great things one would accom- 
plish, if he had more activity of mind, is to say how strong a 
man would be if he only had more strength ; or how swiftly 
1* 



10 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

a steamer would cut the waves, if she had only a bigger boiler, 
or could generate steam fast enough ! 

It is easy to theorize as to what men might become, if they 
were something different from what they are. Give a man 
the mental energy, the spiritual force of Newton, and he may 
unquestionably do as great things as Newton. Give a dog the 
muscular strength, the physical qualities of the lion, and he 
will be as terrible as the monarch of the forest ; or, vice versa, 
make the lion cease to be carnivorous in his instincts, and he 
will be a pleasant playfellow for your dogs and children. 

All experience shows that it is the nature of genius to labor 
patiently, and hence it is easy to leap to the conclusion that 
genius is but patient labor. But though genius is essentially 
active, and will labor, though not always by square rule and 
compass, it is the falsest of notions that will can do the work 
of intellect, that effort can supply genius, and that mere inten- 
sity of desire can give intensity of power. As well might the 
tortoise hope, by intense striving, to run as fast as the grey- 
hound, the truck-horse to rival Dexter in fleetness, or the 
monkey to acquire the strength of the elephant. It is per- 
haps doubtful whether any great intellectual thing was ever 
done by great effort ; a great thing can be done only by a great 
man, and he does it without effort. Hazlitt goes so far as to 
say that " an improving actor never becomes a great one. I 
have known such in my time, who were always advancing by 
slow and sure steps to the height of their profession ; but in 
the mean time some man of genius rose, and, passing them, 
at once seized on the topmost round of ambition's ladder, so 
that they still remained in the second class." As the same 
acute writer further adds, a volcano does not give warning 
when it will break out, nor a thunderbolt send word of its 
approach. Kean stamped himself the first night in Shylock ; 
he never did it any better. A man of genius is sui generis ; 
to be known, he needs only to be seen; you can no more 
dispute whether he is one, than you can dispute whether it is a 
panther that is shown you in a cage. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. II 

Neither do great occasions make great men, — as our late 
civil war and the struggle of France with Prussia too painfully 
prove. Great occasions are the necessities only for which great 
men are the supplies. Great men even make great occasions ; 
nay more, they are great occasions, the great events of history ; 
" not merely the beacon-lights on the line of human progress, 
but the efficient motive-powers, the causes causantes; they 
make, they constitute history." There was never a truer senti- 
ment uttered, than that quoted some years ago at a scientific 
meeting in England, by Professor Owen, from the note-book of 
the late Dr. Hunter, namely, that no man was ever a great man 
who wanted to be one. To achieve any species of greatness, we 
must be utterly unconscious of the way we arrive at it. It is 
not to be acquired by "malice prepense." As well might one 
by taking thought add a cubit to his stature. Great works do 
not make greatness ; they only reveal it. They are the out- 
goings of an inward being ; they are the embodiments of the 
soul, which was born great. The greatest works of human 
genius were written, not to immortalize their authors, but to 
provide for some practical need. Homer sang, partly to kindle 
patriotism in his countrymen, partly, perhaps, to get a good 
night's lodging as he wandered on the shores of Greece and 
Asia ; Shakespeare wrote his dramas, not for glory, but to " put 
money in his purse " ; Hooker's great work was composed to 
quiet the strifes of his time ; and the masterpiece of Burke, on 
which he lavished such a prodigality of thought, was thrown out 
as a bastion to protect the British citadel from French repub- 
licanism. So in all other callings. "When the Duke of Wel- 
lington carried out any of his great strategical operations in 
Spain, or put the keystone to the arch of Ins glory at Waterloo, 
think you he was dreaming of a star and a garter? No; he 
thought only of giving the French a sound thrashing. 

It is well known that hero-worshippers are almost universally 
disappointed in President Grant. The closest scrutiny of his 
features or manner fails to detect any signs of genius in him. 
Senator Yates well observed in a speech, that the genius of 



12 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

General Grant "is not ostentatious nor dramatic. It is tM 
genius of accomplishment that he has. When his work is done, 
there it is, done ; and there is the man, except for the work, 
ordinary as before." Such men are content to do, and leave 
their glory to take care of itself. 

Paradoxical as this may all seem, it is nevertheless true, nor 
does it offer any encouragement to idleness, or natter the con- 
ceit of heaven-descended genius in turn-down collars, that labor 
may be dispensed with. It simply says that the crow is not 
the eagle, and that no amount of sun-starings will make it one ; 
therefore as an able writer, himself a man of brilliant genius, has 
said, "It is no man's business whether he has genius or not ; 
work he must, whatever he is, but quietly and steadily, and 
the natural and unforced results of such work will be always 
the tilings that God meant him to do, and will be his best. 
No agonies, nor heart-rendings, will enable him to do any 
better ! If he be a great man, they will be great things ; if he 
is a small man, small things; but always, if thus peacefully 
done, good and right ; always, if restlessly and ambitiously 
done, false, hollow, and despicable." 

The writers who talk of the great tilings that may be achieved 
by a determined will — by an intense, continuous act of voli- 
tion to do and to be such and such things — forget that this 
power of willing strongly is, to a large extent, a gift of nature, 
and as rare as any other good thing in the world. Again, 
while some pre-eminently successful men have pursued paths 
previously marked out, many have proposed to themselves no 
distinct goal to be reached. As a sensible writer says : "A 
man starts on his career with a tacit understanding with him- 
self that he is to rise. It is a step-by-step progress. He 
probably has no distinct aim. It is only in books that he 
resolves from the first dawning of ambition to become owner 
of such an estate, or bishop of such a see. But he means to get 
on, and devotes all his powers to that end. He fixes his 
thought beyond immediate self-indulgence, chooses his friends 
as they will help the main design, falls in love on the sam» 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 13 

principle, and, habitually deferring to a vague but glowing 
future, learns to work towards it, and for its sake to be self- 
denying and long-sighted. His instincts quicken; he puts 
forth feelers, which men who take their pleasure from hand to 
mouth have no use for ; he lives in habitual caution, with an 
eye always to the main chance. Thus he refines and enhances 
that natural discretion which doubles the weight and value of 
every other gift, and yet keeps them on an unobtrusive level, 
leaving itself the most notable quality, till he is universally 
pronounced the man made to get on, by people who do not 
know that it is a steady will that has made and kept him what 
he is." 

The truth is, men differ from birth in mind as they differ in 
'body, though in each case the differences may be modified 
to a certain degree by training, regimen, and so forth. But is 
there anything in this truth to discourage the young man who 
is anxious to get on in the world 1 By no means. No man 
knows what are his powers, whether he is capable of great or 
only of little things, till he has tested himself by actual trial. 
Let every beginner in life put forth his whole strength, with- 
out troubling himself with the question whether he has genius 
or not ; then, as Sir Joshua Reynolds says, " if he has great 
talents, industry will improve them • if he has but moderate 
abilities, industry will supply their deficiency." The more 
limited your powers, the greater need of effort ; the smaller the 
results of your efforts, the greater need that they should be 
repeated. The mediocre capacity must be eked out by brave 
resolve and persistent effort. The Spartan youth who com- 
plained to his mother that his sword was too short, was told 
to add a step to it ; and so must your scant capacity be in- 
creased by redoubled diligence and a more earnest determina- 
tion. If it be not true that, as Sir Joshua Eeynolds says, 
" nothing is denied to well-directed labor," it is certain that, as 
he further says, "nothing is to be obtained without it." To a 
large extent, as William Penn declares, " industry supplies the 
want of parts ; patience and diligence, like faith, remove moun- 



14 GETTING 0N IN THE WORLD. 

tains." " There lives not a man on earth, out of a lunatic 
asylum," says Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, and the words 
should ring in every young man's ears, " who has not in him 
the power to do good. What can writers, haranguers, or specu- 
lators do more than that 1 Have you ever entered a cottage, 
ever travelled in a coach, ever talked with a peasant in the 
field, or loitered with a mechanic at the loom, and not found 
that each of those men had a talent you had not, knew some 
things you knew not? The most useless creature that ever 
yawned at a club, or counted the vermin on his rags, under the 
suns of Calabria, has no excuse for want of intellect. What 
men want is, not talent, it is purpose ; in other words, not the 
power to achieve, but the will to labor." / 

There is, perhaps, no mistake of the young more common 
than that of supposing that, in the pursuits of life, extraordinary 
talents are necessary to one who would achieve more than ordi- 
nary success. To minds that lack energy, it seems impossible 
to believe that those persons who have made themselves a 
place in history by their connection with striking events, and 
whose influence has been felt through ages in the changes they 
have produced in the destinies of nations, have been men of 
ordinary intellectual calibre, and not possessed of that compre- 
hensive grasp of the wholeness of things which embraces all 
their bearings and relations, and places a man in advance of 
the philosophy of his age. But the experience of the world 
is not so discouraging to its mediocre men. The spectacle of 
triumphant mediocrity is exhibited daily ; and every man of 
great intellectual capacity, who has made the observation of his 
fellow-creatures his business during an extended career, must 
have had frequent occasion to be forcibly struck by the suc- 
cesses of eminent persons whose abilities, in comparison with 
his own, appeared to striking advantage. The wants of society 
raise thousands to distinction who are not possessed of un- 
common endowments. The utility of actions to mankind is 
the standard by which they are measured, and not the intel- 
lectual supremacy which is established by their performance. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 15 

But very ordinary abilities will suffice to make a man eminently 
useful ; and surpassing talents have frequently been unservice- 
able in proportion as they were objects of admiration. Nor 
has it escaped the notice of any close observer of human affairs, 
that in numerous instances men are pushed forward by events 
over which they have no control. It often happens that 
schemes work out* their own execution, and that benignant 
fortune obviates astounding deficiencies and extravagant blun- 
ders. Besides, worldly success depends less on the general 
superiority of one's intellectual powers, than on their peculiar 
adaptation to the work in hand. A moderate talent well 
applied will achieve more useful results, and impose more on 
mankind, than minds of the highest order, whose temper is 
too fine for the mechanical parts of a profession. The astonish- 
ing variety of talents which some men display is purchased at 
the dear price of comparative feebleness in every part. The 
highest reputation in every department of human exertion is 
reserved for minds of one faculty, where no rival powers divide 
the empire of the soul, and where there is no variety of pur- 
suits to distract and perplex its energies. 

The life of Sir Francis Horner strikingly illustrates the 
truth we have tried to enforce. " The valuable and peculiar 
light in which Horner stands out," says Cockburn in his 
Memorials of this eminent Scotchman, " the light in which 
his history is calculated to inspire every right-minded youth, 
is this : he died at the age of thirty-eight, possessed of greater 
public influence than any other private man, and admired, 
beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless or the 
base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any 
deceased member. Now, let every young man ask, How was 
this attained? By rank 1 ? He was the son of an Edinburgh 
merchant. By wealth 1 Neither he nor any of his relatives 
ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office 1 ? He held but 
one, and only for a few years, of no influence, and with very 
little pay. By talents ? His were not splendid, and he had no 
genius ; cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be right. 



16 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

By eloquence 1 He spoke in calm good taste, without any of 
the oratory that either terrifies or seduces. By any fascination 
of manner 1 His was only correct and agreeable. By what, 
then, was it 1 Merely by sense, industry, good principles, and 
a good heart, — qualities which no well-constituted mind need 
ever despair of attaining. It was the force of his character 
that raised him, and this character not impressed upon him by 
nature, but formed out of no peculiarly fine elements by him- 
self. Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided 
by anything whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, 
even when these powers are displayed amidst the competition 
and jealousy of public life." 

It is indeed wonderful with what slender qualifications one 
may, under favorable circumstances, attain success, and even 
fill a large space in society. The high reputation of many per- 
sons is acquired in a great measure by mere dexterity and cun- 
ning, by siding with prevailing opinions, or by nattering the 
prejudices of a powerful party. Besides, there is a discretion 
more valuable than the most extensive knowledge or the highest 
intellectual endowments. There are some men who give excel- 
lent advice touching the affairs of others, but who, from some 
inexplicable reason, show a total want of judgment in directing 
their own. They are useful when under able guidance, but, if 
left alone, plunge into some quagmire, and render useless the ser- 
vices they have already performed. We see other men, who, 
with comparatively slender talents, are the instruments of achiev- 
ing more important results than are effected by men of far greater 
endowments. They know precisely the extent of their facul- 
ties, and never aim at objects beyond their reach. They care- 
fully survey their means of success, and never fix their attention 
so strongly upon one point as to overlook others equally impor- 
tant. Never struggling obstinately against the stream, they 
are constantly ready, as the aspect of things changes, to vary 
their plans or remit their exertions, yet in all their variations 
they keep one object steadily in view. Preferring to play 
a small game rather than to stand out, and content with petty 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 17 

advances when a more rapid progress is impossible, they 
quicken their pace and enlarge their schemes as fortune favors, 
and, though unnoticed by the world, exert a more important 
influence over its destinies than many who have filled a larger 
space in the eye of mankind. 

A still greater source of discouragement than the conscious- 
ness of mediocre abilities, to many beginners, is the feeling 
that there is no place for them in the great beehive of society. 
Looking about in the world they see, or fancy they see, every 
place rilled, — a complement of hands in every department of 
the great workshop, and, even if a vacant place for them could 
be found, a skilful workman has anticipated their best efforts ; 
so, like the rustic who waited for the river to run by, they 
hesitate to embark in any business, or embark without spirit 
or hope. Had they lived a little earlier or a little later in the 
world's history, they could have " got on " without difficulty, 
but not at this epoch. They could have won fame or a for- 
tune half a century ago, could win it, perhaps, half a century 
later, but not at this unlucky time. Success, always a coy 
maiden, is now, when crowds of wooers have made her saucy, 
harder than ever to win. The would-be poet, it is said, is 
always laboring under this disorder. He always somehow falls 
on evil days. The good time is either past or to come ; it is 
never now. The truth is, however, that there is no occasion 
for these croakings, nor ever was at any period of the world's 
history. { The world is a hard world, but in the long run it is 
an eminently just one. It is always groping about for men of 
ability and integrity to fill its places of responsibility, and 
• those who have these qualifications, if they do not hidd them 
from shyness, are almost sure to find employment. It always 
has been, and always will be, more difficult to find talents for 
the places than places for the talents. Human selfishness, 
were there no other agencies at work, will not suffer men of 
ability to languish in idleness. 

Do not despair, then, because to win the prizes of life you 
must struggle against many competitors. Dryden says that no 



18 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

man ever need fear refusal from any lady, if he only give his 
heart to getting her; and the same is true of success. As 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu used to say, " If you wish to get 
on, you must do as you would to get in through a crowd to a 
gate all are equally anxious to reach. Hold your ground and 
push hard. To stand still is to give up your hope." Give your 
energies to " the highest employment of which your nature is 
capable " ; he alive ; be patient ; work hard ; watch opportu- 
nities ; be rigidly honest ; hope for the best ; and if you fail 
to reach the goal of your wishes, which is possible in spite of 
the utmost efforts, you will die with the consciousness of hav- 
ing done your best, which is, after all, the truest success to 
which man can aspire. 



GOOD AN T D BAD LUCK. 19 



CHAPTER II. 

GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 

Le bien, nous le faisons ; le mal, c'est la fortune ; 

On a toujours raison, le Destin toujours tort. — La Fontaine. 

People do not very readily blame themselves. They call in a third party, 
like the mysterious sleeping partner of a money-lender, who always finds 
the money ; this third party is Fate or Destiny. — J. H. Friswell, The 
Gentle Life. 

Quand il vous arrivera quelque grand malheur, examinez vous bien, et 
vous verrez qu'il y aura toujours un peu de votre faute. — Le Sage. 

Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus with thy faults ; nor make 
Saturn, Mars, or Venus guilty of thy follies. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

Untoward accidents will sometimes happen ; but, after many, many years 
of thoughtful experience, I can truly say, that nearly all those who began life 
with me have succeeded or failed as they deserved. — Richard Sharp. 

BEFORE proceeding to inquire what are the elements of sue 
cess in life, it may be well briefly to discuss a question winch 
starts up at the very threshold, namely, How far do men owe 
their success to their own merits, and how far to favoring 
circumstances or luck 1 There are some persons who proverbi- 
ally never get on in the world, whom Fortune seems to perse- 
cute with unrelenting cruelty from the cradle to the grave. If 
they were born rich, they contrive to become poor ; and it 
they begin poor, they have a knack of always remaining so, 
" holding their own " with remarkable steadiness through life. 
Perhaps they were born blockheads ; yet, even in that case, 
their blunders are so gross and glaring that it seems as if, like 
those of Foresight in one of Congreve's comedies, they must 
have required infinite study, consideration, and caution, — 
caution, lest by any chance they should deviate into sense. 
Dr. Johnson graphically described these persons in his account 
of the conversation of the elder Sheridan : " Why, sir, Sherry 
is dull, naturally dull • but it must have taken him a great 



20 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an 
excess of stupidity is not in nature." Yet never will you 
extort from such persons the admission that their ill-success is 
their own fault. They ascribe it to their hard luck, to the ras- 
cality of the men they have confided in, to the improper organ- 
ization of society, to anything but their own folly, indolence, 
or lack of brains. 

Indeed, there is hardly a word in the vocabulary which is 
more cruelly abused than the word " luck." To all the faidts and 
failures of men, their positive sins and their less culpable short 
comings, it is made to stand a godfather and sponsor. We are all 
Micawbers at heart, fancying that " something " will one day 
" turn up " for our good, for which we have never striven. Go 
talk with the bankrupt man of business, who has swamped Ms 
fortune by wild speculation, extravagance of living, or lack of 
energy, and you will find that he vindicates his wounded self- 
love by confounding the steps which he took indiscreetly with 
those to which he was forced by " circumstances," and com- 
placently regarding himself as the victim of ill-luck. Go visit 
the incarcerated criminal, who has imbrued his hands in the 
blood of his fellow-man, or who is guilty of less heinous crimes, 
and you will find that, slumping the temptations which were 
easy to avoid with those which were comparatively irresistible, 
he has hurriedly patched up a treaty with conscience, and 
stifles its compunctious visitings by persuading himself that, 
from first to last, he was the victim of circumstances. Go talk 
with the mediocre in talents and attainments, the weak-spirited 
man who, from lack of energy and application, has made but 
little headway in the world, being outstripped in the race of 
life by those whom he had despised as his inferiors, and you 
will find that he, too, acknowledges the all-potent power of 
luck, and soothes his humbled pride by deeming himself the 
victim of ill-fortune. In short, from the most venial offence to 
the most flagrant, there is hardly any wrong act or neglect to 
which this too fatally convenient word is not applied as a pal- 
liation. It has been truly said that there is a fine generality 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 21 

in the expression, — a power of any meaning or no meaning, — 
which fits it for all purposes alike. It is the great permanent, 
non-papal, and self-granted indidgence of all mankind. 

Xow that there is such a thing as luck — meaning by it 
the occasional operation of causes over which we have no 
control, though their influence is greatly exaggerated — is not 
to be denied. True as it may be generally that, as Shake- 
speare says, 

" It is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings," 

yet, it is equally true, as the same great moralist has qualified 
the sentiment, that 

" There 's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

A De Moivre may calculate, with mathematical nicety, what 
he calls the " doctrine of chances " ; but experience will falsify 
the calculation in perhaps five cases out of ten. The profound 
mathematician tells you that, if you tlirow the dice, it is thirty 
to one against your turning up a particular number, and a 
hundred to one against your repeating the same throw three 
times running ; and so on, in an augmenting ratio. You take 
the box, and throw. At the first cast up comes the uiducky 
number, that beggars you, if a gambler; and you repeat 
it ten times running. An unskilful commander sometimes 
wins a victory ; and again a famous warrior finds himself, 
" after a hundred victories, foiled." Some of the skilfullest 
sea-captains lose every ship they sail in ; others, less experi- 
enced, never lose a spar. Some men's houses take fire an hour 
after the insurance expires ; others never insure, and never are 
burned out. Some of the shrewdest men, with indefatigable 
industry and the closest economy, fail to make money ; others, 
with apparently none of the qualities that insure success, are 
continually blundering into profitable speculations, and, Midas- 
like, touch nothing but it turns to gold. Beau Brummell, with 
his lucky sixpence in his pocket, wins at every gaming-table, 
and bags £ 40,000 in the clubs of London and Xewmarket ; he 



22 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

loses his magic talisman and with it his luck, is plucked of 
his fortune, and obliged to fly to the Continent. The experi- 
ence of a character in one of Cumberland's plays hardly bur- 
lesques an actual truth. " It is not upon slight grounds," says 
he, " that I despair. I have tried each walk, and am likely to 
starve at last. There is not a point to which the art and fac- 
ulty of man can turn, that I have not set mine to, but in 
vain. I am beat through every quarter of the compass. I 
have blustered for prerogative ; I have bellowed for freedom ; 
I have offered to serve my country ; I have engaged to betray 
it. Why, I have talked treason, writ treason ; and if a man 
can't live by that, he can't live by anything. Here I set up as 
a bookseller, and people immediately leave off reading. If I 
were to turn butcher, I believe, o' my conscience, they 'd leave 
off eating." On the other hand, the crazy-headed Lord Timothy 
Dexter sends a cargo of warming-pans to the West Indies, and 
lo ! while everybody is laughing at him, it proves a brilliant 
adventure. 

A writer in the Edinburgh Review, in speaking of success 
at the bar, says, with much truth, that, when there is not legal 
business enough for all the profession, some must starve. An 
overstocked profession is like a crew trying to save themselves 
upon a raft scarcely large enough to carry half of them; or 
like the inmates of the Black Hole at Calcutta, where all who 
could not get near the aperture in the wall were suffocated, 
the survivors owing their safety as much to position and selfish- 
ness as to strength. Erskine once declared in Parliament that 
success oftener depended upon accident and certain physical 
advantages, than upon the most brilliant talent and the most 
profound erudition. A high-spirited and popular leader lately 
illustrated the matter thus : " When I look round upon my 
competitors, and consider my own qualifications, the wonder 
to me is, how I ever got the place I now occupy. I can only 
account for it by comparing the forensic career to one of the 
crossings in our great thoroughfares. You arrive just when it 
is clear, and get over at once ; another finds it blocked up, is 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 23 

kept waiting, and arrives too late at his destination, though the 
better pedestrian of the two." 

So powerfully does fortune appear to sway the destinies of 
men, putting a silver spoon into one man's mouth, and a 
wooden one into another's, that some of the most sagacious of 
men, as Cardinal Mazarin and Rothschild, seem to have been 
inclined to regard luck as the first element of worldly success ; 
experience, sagacity, energy, and enterprise as nothing, if 
linked to an -unlucky star. Whittington, and his cat that 
proved such a source of riches ; the man who, worn out by a 
painful disorder, attempted suicide, and was cured by opening 
an internal imposthume ; the Persian, condemned to lose his 
tongue, on whom the operation was so bunglingly performed 
that it merely removed an impediment in his speech; the 
painter who produced an effect he had long toiled after in vain, 
by throwing his brush at the picture in a fit of rage and 
despair ; the musical composer, who, having exhausted his 
patience in attempts to imitate on the piano a storm at sea, 
accomplished the precise result by angrily extending his hands 
to the two extremities of the keys, and bringing them rapidly 
together, — all these seem to many fit types of the freaks of 
Fortune by which some men are enriched or made famous by 
their blunders, while others, with ten times the capacity and 
knowledge, are kept at the bottom of her wheel. Hence we 
gee thousands fold their arms and look with indifference on the 
great play of life, keeping aloof from its finest and therefore 
most arduous struggles, because they believe that success is a 
matter of accident, and that they may spend their heart's 
choicest blood and affection on noble ends, yet be balked of 
victory, cheated of any just returns. 

There is one curious fact noticeable in regard to this thing 
called " luck," which is, that while it is made responsible for 
any turn of affairs that we feel to be discreditable to us, it 
rarely has credit for an opposite state of things ; but, like most 
other faithful, allies in victory, comes poorly off. Every good 
deed we do, every triumph we achieve, either in the battle- 



24 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

field of the world or of our own hearts, is due to ourselves 
alone. Stoutly as we may affirm that our disasters and vices 
are chargeable to luck, we never dream of ascribing our merito- 
rious deeds, in the slightest degree, to its agency. In such 
cases we quite unconsciously blink out of sight the magic 
power of the latter principle, so wondrous and all-controlling 
in its influence at other times, and coolly appropriate to our- 
selves not merely the lion's share, but the whole glory of our 
position. We would, in fact, persuade the world, that, through- 
out, all the circumstances were actually against us, but that by 
our own stern resolve and heroic energy we crushed our way 
through them. In cases like this, we act very much like the 
English sailor in Joe Miller. Falling from the ship's topmast 
upon deck without injury, he instantly jumped up, and, spring- 
ing to the side of the vessel, called out to the crew of a Dutch 
vessel near by, one of whom had performed some wonderful 
feats in leaping, " Can any of you lubbers do anything like 
that 1 " 

The sum of the whole matter is this. Man is, to a consid- 
erable extent, the child of opportunity. Estimate as highly as 
we may the power of the individual in the achievement of suc- 
cess, there is yet another factor in the product, the power of 
circumstances, which we cannot wholly ignore. It has been 
remarked that the same tree that is soft and spongy in a fat 
swamp, with its heavy air, grows hard and noble on the hill- 
side. Spitzbergen forests are breast high, and Nova Scotia 
hemlocks mourn their cold wet sky in long weird shrouds of 
white moss. As the acute French writer, M. Taine, says : 
" Nature, being a sower of men, and constantly putting her 
hand in the same sack, distributes over the soil regularly and 
in turn about the same proportionate quantity and quality of 
seed. But in the handfuls she scatters as she strides over 
time and space, not all germinate. A certain moral tempera- 
ture is necessary to develop certain talents ; if this is wanting, 
these prove abortive. Consequently, as the temperature changes, 
so will the species of talent change ; if it turn in an opposite 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 25 

direction, talent follows ; so that, in general, we may conceive 
moral temperature as making a selection among different species 
of talent, allowing only this or that species to develop itself, to 
the more or less complete exclusion of others." 

Gray's musings on the Crom wells and Miltons of the village 
only exaggerate a real truth. There are times in every man's 
life when, if he were a pagan, he would incline to believe that 
his career is directed by an ironical fate which finds a certain 
pleasure in mocking his best plans and most strenuous efforts 
by an unexpected reverse; when, finding himself baffled at 
every turn, he sits down in despair and says to himself, " It is 
useless to struggle in the meshes in which I am entangled ; all 
things have conspired against me ; I can never extricate my- 
self, and the sooner I cease to fight against destiny the better." 
The ancients fully believed in destiny. " Some people," says 
Pliny, " refer their successes to virtue and ability ; but it is all 
fate." Alexander depended much upon his luck, and Plu- 
tarch tells us that Sulla was so lucky that the surname of 
" Fortunate " was given him. Cicero speaks of the luck of 
Pabius Maxim us, Marcellus, Scipio, and Marius as a settled 
thing. " It was not only their courage," he says, " but their 
fortune, which induced the people to intrust them with the 
command of their armies. Por there can be little doubt but 
that, besides their great abilities, there was a certain Fortune 
appointed to attend upon them, and to conduct them to honor 
and renown, and to uncommon success in the management of 
important affairs." Caesar believed in his own good luck, and 
told the pilot in the storm, Ccesarem portas et fortunam ejus, 
— " You carry Caesar and his good fortune." Some of the great- 
est modern generals have agreed with Bacon that " outward 
accidents conduce much to fortune." Marlborough, who 
planned his battles so carefully, talked more than once 
about his destiny. Cromwell had his lucky days, of which 
his birthday, when he gained two great battles, was one ; and 
Nelson had his white days and his black ones. 

When we see Mahomet flying from his enemies, saved by 



26 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

a spider's web; when we think that a Whig Ministry was 
hurled from power in England by the spilling of some water 
on a lady's gown ; when we find a Franklin ascribing his turn 
of thought and conduct through life to the accident of a tat- 
tered copy of Cotton Mather's " Essays to do Good " falling 
into his hands, and Jeremy Bentham attributing similar effects 
to a single phrase, " The greatest good of the greatest number," 
that caught his eye at the end of a pamphlet ; when we see a 
Bruce pass through a series of perils greater than any which the 
most daring romance-writer or melodramatist ever imagined for 
his hero, and then perish from a fall in handing a lady down 
stairs after dinner, and a Speke accidentally shoot himself in 
England, after escaping innumerable dangers in penetrating 
to the furtive and reedy fountains of the Nile ; when we find 
that one man may suck an orange and be choked by a pit, 
another swallow a penknife and live ; one run a thorn into his 
hand and die, in spite of the utmost efforts of medical skill, 
another recover, after a shaft of a gig has run completely 
through his body, — we cannot help believing, with Solomon, 
who, doubtless, had himself witnessed many such grim an- 
titheses of life and death, that time and chance happen to 
all men, and that circumstances have much to do with every 
man's career in life. " We talk of life as a journey," says 
Sydney Smith, " but how variously is that journey performed ! 
There are those who come forth girt, and shod, and mantled, to 
walk on velvet lawns and smooth terraces, where every gale is 
arrested and every beam is tempered. There are others who 
walk on the Alpine paths of life, against driving misery, and 
through stormy sorrows, over sharp afflictions ; walk with bare 
feet and naked breast, jaded, mangled, and chilled." 

The degree in which fame — one of the prizes of life for 
which men struggle — is dependent on accident, sometimes the 
result even of ill-luck, is strikingly illustrated by the fate of 
Sir John Moore. " He had fought," says a writer in the 
Dublin University Magazine, " as other generals had, had his 
successes as well as his reverses, and had just kept his head 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 27 

above water before the advancing army of Soult. On the walls 
of Corunna he met his fate, and might have lain there, as hun- 
dreds of others did, in an unrecorded grave, to this hour and to 
all future ages, had not an ordinary Irish parson, from a remote 
country parish, and from amid common prosaic pursuits, caught 
a glance, in his imagination, of the lifeless warrior, as he was 
hurried to a hasty grave, in the silence of the night, within the 
sound of the advancing enemy's guns. The look was enough, 
— the picture was taken, with its full significance of pathos, 
into the heart of the poet ; and, when it reappeared, it was 
found to have been incrusted with amber, thereafter never- 
more to pass away. It is true, little ceremony was observed at 
that burial, — 

' Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note ' ; 

but the lyre was struck, and the echoes went forth to the ends 
of the earth ; and so Sir John Moore passed, by the narrow 
channel of those few hasty and careless stanzas, from the shores 
of oblivion, where he would have wandered till doomsday with 
thousands of unrecorded comrades, to those same Isles of the 
Ble»t, wherein, as we have already observed, the favorite heroes 
of all ages have pitched their tents and exalted their standard." 
It cannot be denied, therefore, that there is, in the sense 
already explained, an element of chance in human affairs, to 
which success or failure is sometimes owing. But, while 
circumstances may make or mar a man, it is equally true that 
he may often make his circumstances. Admitting that luck or 
fortune, which are but other names for unforeseen and uncon- 
trollable circumstances, does sometimes shape our destinies, yet 
it would be easy to show that, in nine times out of ten, it is a 
mere bugbear of the idle, the languid, and the self-indulgent. 
Two men may seem to adopt the same means to attain the 
same end, and, because one succeeds and the other fails, we say 
that the one is more fortunate than the other. But the one 
succeeds and the other fails because they do not really adopt 
the same means toward the same end. Of the two pilgrims 
who started on their journey each with peas in his shoon, it 



28 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

has been justly said that "the one was not more fortunate 
than the other; he was simply more wise. The man who 
sank by the way, toil-worn and foot-sore, with drops of agony 
on his forehead, groaning with pain, may have been the better 
walker of the two. The race is not always to the swift, nor the 
battle to the strong. It is by the right application of your 
swiftness or your strength to the particular object in view that 
you make your way to success." It is not enough to do the 
right thing, but we must do it in the right way, and at the 
right time, if we would achieve great triumphs in life. Again, 
the " circumstances," of which so many complain, should be 
regarded as the very tools with which we are to work, the 
stepping-stones we are to mount by. They are the wind and 
tide in the voyage of life, which the skilful mariner always 
calculates upon, and, generally, either takes advantage of or 
overcomes. The true way to conquer circumstances is to be a 
greater circumstance to yourself. As Burke says, " you have 
only to get into the trade-wind, and you will sail secure over 
the Pactolean sands." " Common sense," says Wendell Phil- 
lips, " plays the game with the cards it has. Common sense 
bows to the inevitable, and makes use of it. It does not ask an 
impossible chess-board, but takes the one before it, and plays 
the game." Instead of bemoaning our hard lot, or the unfavor- 
able circumstances under which we are compelled to act, we 
must put forth the vivida vis animi of him 

" Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star." 

"We must place ourselves en rapport with the circumstances ; 
strike with, not against, the forces of nature, as the pile-driver 
does when it deals its mighty blows. 

Mr. Galton, in his work on Hereditary Genius, observes : 
" I believe that if the ' eminent ' men of any period had been 
changelings when babies, a very fair proportion of those who 
survived and retained their health up to fifty years of age would, 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 29 

notwithstanding their altered circumstances, have equally risen 
to eminence. Thus, to take a strong case, it is incredible that 
any combination of circumstances could have repressed Lord 
Brougham to the level of undistinguished mediocrity. If a man 
is gifted with vast intellectual power, eagerness to work, and 
power of working, I cannot comprehend how such a man 
should be repressed. The world is always tormented with 
difficulties waiting to be solved, struggling with ideas and feel - 
ings to which it can give no adequate expression. If, then, 
there exists a man capable of solving those difficulties, or of 
giving a voice to those pent-up feelings, he is sure to be 
welcomed with universal acclamation. We may almost say 
that he has only to put his pen to paper and the thing is 
done." 

The part which luck plays in relation to human success is 
strikingly illustrated in the case of the celebrated advocate, 
Thomas Erskine. When he began his career, his prospects 
were far from encouraging. Without means, and without 
professional or social connections, he looked forward probably 
to a weary probation upon the back benches of the court, 
among the horde of nameless and briefless juniors, lingering 
like the ghosts upon the banks of the Styx, waiting wearily 
for a passage over the river. He had scarcely a shilling in his 
pocket when he got his first retainer ; and that he would not 
have received, and consequently might not have risen to be 
Lord Chancellor, but for the fortunate sprain which caused 
him hastily to relinquish an intended visit, and return home, 
where he was waited on by a maritime gentleman, Captain 
Baillie, whose case he took up, mastered, and triumphantly 
conducted before Lord Mansfield. Even after the brief was 
handed to him, he might have had no opportunity to display 
his powers, had not a series of lucky circumstances favored 
him. When the case came on, he found in the list of barris- 
ters retained the names of four senior counsel, and, despairing 
of being heard after so many predecessors, he gave himself no 
more trouble about the matter. But, fortunately, the affidavits 



30 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

were so long, and some of the counsel so tedious, — a tedious- 
ness aggravated by the circumstance that one of them was 
afflicted with strangury, and had to retire once or twice in 
the course of his argument, — that Lord Mansfield adjourned 
the cause till the next morning, thus giving the young advo- 
cate a whole night to arrange his thoughts, and enabling him 
to address the court when its faculties were awake and fresh- 
ened. In alluding to this lucky incident, by which he was 
enabled to make what Lord Campbell calls " the most wonder- 
ful forensic effort of which we have any account in British an- 
nals," Erskine says : "I have since nourished, but I have 
always blessed God for the providential strangury of poor 
Hargrave." Rarely has a brilliant start in life — perhaps the 
entire success of a life — been owing to so many lucky acci- 
dents ; but who does not see that all these would have been of 
no advantage to the young barrister, had he been unequal to 
the occasion; had he not, by previous hard study, self-train- 
ing, and self-sacrifice, prepared himself to take advantage of 
the accidents which brought him into notice 1 

In the life of the most unlucky person there are always 
some occasions when, by prompt and vigorous action, he may 
win the things he has at heart. Raleigh flung his laced jacket 
into a puddle, and won a proud queen's favor. A village 
apothecary chanced to visit the state apartments at the Pavil- 
ion, when George the Fourth was seized with a fit. He bled 
him, brought him back to consciousness, and, by his genial 
and quaint humor, made the king laugh. The monarch took 
a fancy to him, made him his physician, and made his fortune. 
Probably no man ever lives to middle age to whom two or 
three such opportunities do not present themselves. " There 
is nobody," says a Roman cardinal, " whom Fortune does not 
visit once in his life ; but when she finds he is not ready to 
receive her, she goes in at the door, and out through the win- 
dow." Opportunity is coy. The careless, the slow, the unob- 
servant, the lazy, fail to see it, or clutch at it when it has gone. 
The sharp fellows detect it instantly, and catch it when on the 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 31 

wing. It is not enough, however, to seize opportunity when 
it comes. We must not be content with waiting for " some- 
thing to turn up " ; we must try to make something turn up. 
" We must not only strike the iron while it is hot, but strike 
it till it is made hot." 

It is a popular idea that great inventions are the result of 
what is called " lucky hits," that chance has more to do 
with them than head-work. It is true that the very greatest 
indentions are the simplest, and that the truths on which they 
are founded seem obvious. But familiar and commonplace as 
they may appear, we must remember that the veil, flimsy and 
transparent as it may now seem when a school-boy's hand can 
lift it, was yet sufficient to conceal these truths for centuries. 
As Professor Whewell has truly said, " ISo man who fairly 
considers the real nature of great discoveries, and the intellec- 
tual processes which they involve, can seriously hold the opin- 
ion of their being the effect of accident. Such accidents never 
happen to common men. Thousands of men, even the most 
inquiring and speculative, had seen bodies fall ; but who, ex- 
cept Newton, ever followed the accident to such consequen- 
ces 1 " Buffon, another competent authority, tells us that in- 
vention, so far from being accidental, depends on patience. 
" Contemplate your subject long. It will gradually unfold 
itself, till a sort of electric spark convulses the brain for a mo- 
ment, and sends a glow of irritation to the heart. Then comes 
the luxury of genius." 

Cardinal Kichelieu was not glaringly wrong, therefore, in 
the opinion that an unfortunate and an imprudent person are 
synonymous terms. Every man is placed, in some degree, 
under the influence of events and of other men ; but it is for 
himself to decide whether he will rule, or be ruled by them. 
They may operate powerfully against him at times ; but rarely 
so as to overwhelm him, if he bears up manfully, and with a 
stout, dogged will. In the battle of life we may be drawn as 
conscripts, but our courage or our cowardice, our gentleness or 
our cruelty, depends upon ourselves. " The Admiralty," wrote 



32 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Nelson, when expecting to command the finest fleet in the 
world, " may order me a cock-boat, but I will do my duty." 
It is now admitted that the English were not lucky in the 
Eussian war, simply because they hesitated. A gunboat with 
a will behind it, according to high military authority, would at 
one time have settled the matter ; England had a fleet, but not 
a will. " In one respect," said the French Admiral Coligni, 
"I may claim superiority over Alexander, over Scipio, over 
Caesar. They won great battles, it is true ; I have lost four 
great battles, and yet I show to the enemy a more formidable 
front than ever." The man who shows this spirit will tri- 
umph over fortune in the end. Like cork, he may be sub- 
merged for a while, but he cannot be kept down. De Quin- 
cey justly remarks of Caesar, that the superb character of his 
intellect throws a colossal shadow, as of predestination, over 
the most trivial incidents of his career. But it was simply 
through the perfection of his preparations, arrayed against all 
conceivable contingencies, and which make him appear like 
some incarnate providence, veiled in a human form, ranging 
through the ranks of the legions, that he was enabled to tri- 
umph over Pompey, whom Cicero had pronounced " the semper 
felix" — always lucky, — when he recommended him to the 
Roman Senate as the best man to crush the pirates. 
No doubt that, as Byron said, sometimes 

" Men are the sport of circumstances, when 
The circumstances seem the sport of men." 

" Eavor, opportunity, the death of others, and occasion fitting 
virtue," have often been, as Bacon says, stepping-stones to suc- 
cess. Sulla thought it better to be lucky than great. Really 
" lucky fellows " there have always been in the world ; but in 
a great majority of cases they who are called such will be found 
on examination to be those keen-sighted men who have sur- 
veyed the world with a scrutinizing eye, and who to clear and 
exact ideas of what is necessary to be done unite the skill neces- 
sary to execute their well-approved plans. If now and then a 
crazy-headed man, as in the instance already mentioned, sends 



GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 33 

a cargo of warming-pans to the "West Indies, which, while 
everybody is laughing at his folly, proves a brilliant venture, 
the very fact that such a freak of fortune excites remark proves 
its infrequency. It is an interesting fact that Wellington, who 
never lost a battle, never spoke of luck, though no man guarded 
more carefully against all possible accidents, or was prompter 
to turn to account the ill-fortune of an adversary. Xapoleon, 
on the other hand, believed in his star. He was the Man 
of Destiny, the picked, the chosen. " People talk of my 
crimes," said he ; " but men of my mark do not commit 
crimes. What I did was a necessity ; I was the child of des- 
tiny ! " But who can doubt that it was for that very reason, 
that, when once the tide of fortune turned against hini, a few 
years of trouble sufficed to kill him, where such a man as 
Wellington would have melted St. Helena rather than have 
given up the ghost with a full stomach ] 

Let no one, then, repine because the fates are sometimes 
against him, but, when he trips or falls, let him, like Caesar 
when he stumbled on the shore, stumble forward, and, by 
escaping the omen, change its nature and meaning. Eemeni- 
bering that those very circumstances which are apt to be 
abused as the palliative of failure are the true test of merit, let 
him gird up his loins for whatever in the mysterious economy 
of the world may await him. Thus will he gradually rise 
superior to ill-fortune, and, becoming daily more and more 
impassive to its attacks, will learn to force his way in spite of 
it, till at last he will be able to fashion his luck to his will. 
" Life is too short," says a shrewd thinker, " for us to waste its 
moments in deploring bad luck ; we must go after success, 
since it will not come to us, and we have no time to spare." 



34 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER III. 

CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 

It is an uncontroverted truth, that no man ever made an ill-figure who 
understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. — Swift. 

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, 
which finds him in employment and happiness. — R. W. Emerson. 

Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed ; be anything else, 
and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. — Sydney Smith. 

I cannot repeat too often that no man struggles perpetually and victoriously 
against his own character ; and one of the first principles of success in life is 
so to regulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution and 
natural inclinations to good account, than to endeavor to counteract the one 
or oppose the other. — Sir H. L. Bulwer. 

IT is almost a truism to say that the first thing to be done by 
him who would succeed in life is to make a wise choice of 
a profession. Of the thousands of men who are continually 
coming upon the stage of life, there are few who escape the 
necessity of adopting some profession or calling ; and there are 
fewer still who, if they knew the miseries of idleness, tenfold 
keener and more numerous than those of the most laborious 
profession, would ever desire such an escape. In this age of 
intense activity, when hundreds of men in every community are 
killing themselves by overwork, it is hardly necessary to show 
that there can be no genuine happiness without labor. All 
sensible men admit, and none more readily than those who 
have tried the experiment of killing time in a round of amuse- 
ments, that the happiest life is made up of alternations of toil 
and leisure, of work and play. So necessary is labor of some 
kind to make existence tolerable, that those men who attempt 
to live a life of idleness are forced eventually to make work for 
themselves ; they turn their very pleasures into toil, and, from 
mere lack of something to do, engage in the most arduous and 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 35 

exhausting pastimes. To escape from the miseries of ennui, 
they resort to the most pitiful contrivances to cheat themselves 
into the illusion that they are busy. Their very amusements 
are encumbered by regulations, and their pleasures, which 
are converted into tasks, are made formal and heavy. The 
most trifling acts and occurrences are treated as of the gravest 
importance ; and the rules of etiquette are enforced by the 
severest penalties. The man of leisure is thus transformed into 
the most bustling, anxious repository of little paltry cares and 
petty crotchets ; and when the night comes, it is with a sense 
of relief, but very different from that of the worker, that he 
reflects that 

" Be the day weary, or be the day long, 
At length it ringeth to evensong." 

It is true that not a few men kill themselves by overwork ; 
but the proportion of such is small to the number who die from 
violating the laws of health ; and death from excessive activity 
is far preferable to death from rust. The spirits may be 
exhausted by employment, but they are utterly destroyed by 
idleness. Burton, in his quaint old work, in summing up the 
causes of melancholy, reduces them to two, solitariness and idle- 
ness. When Charles Lamb was set free from the desk in the 
India Office, to which he had been chained for years, he was in 
an ecstasy of joy. " I would not go back to my prison," he 
exclaimed to a friend, " for ten years longer, for ten thousand 
pounds." " I am free ! free as air ! " he wrote to Bernard Bar- 
ton ; " I will live another fifty years Positively the best 

thing a man can do is — nothing ; and next to that, perhaps, 
good works." Two weary years passed, and Lamb's feelings had 
undergone a complete revolution. He had found that leisure, 
though a pleasant garment to look at, is a very bad one to 
wear. He had found that his humdrum task, the seemingly 
dreary drudgery of desk-work, was a blessing in disguise. " I 
assure you," he again writes to Barton, " no work is worse than 
overwork ; the mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome of 
food. I have ceased to care for almost anything." Persons of 



36 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

naturally active minds, whose " quick thoughts like lightning 
are alive," are the first to feel the pernicious effects of indolence. 
How many such, cursed with too much leisure, take too much 
of something else to make their gloom deeper and their mis- 
fortunes more ! An old divine says truly that the human 
heart is like a millstone ; if you put wheat under it, it grinds 
the wheat into flour ; if you put no wheat, it grinds on, but 
then 't is itself it wears away. Colton observes that ennui has 
made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, 
and more suicides than despair. Muley Ismail, a famous 
tyrant, always employed his troops in some active and useful 
work when not engaged in war, to keep them, he said, " from 
being devoured by the worm of indolence." Count de Caylus, 
a French nobleman, being born to wealth and princely idleness, 
turned his attention to engraving, and made many fine copies 
of antique gems. " I engrave," said he, " that I may not hang 
myself." Old Dumbiedikes wisely charged his son to be "aye 
sticking in a tree when he had nothing else to do " ; and in the 
same vein is the advice of an Elizabethan poet : — 

" Eschew the idle vein, 

Flee, flee from doing naught ! 
For never was there idle brain 
But bred an idle thought." 

It is not easy, however, for a young man to realize this ; 
and hence the time when they shall leave their father's house, 
and minister with their own hands to their necessities, is 
looked forward to by many with dislike and dread. Yet it will 
come, and it is highly important that he who would make the 
most of life should lose no time in indecision, but promptly 
determine to what calling he will give his energies. 

The Latin poet, Horace, advises authors, in choosing a sub- 
ject to write upon, to select one just equal to their strength, 
and to ponder long and deeply what their shoulders will bear. 
Equally essential is it to worldly success in general, that one 
should choose a calling to which his abilities are fitted. With- 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 37 

out going the length of Hazlitt, who affirms that, if a youth 
shows no aptitude for languages, but dances well, it would be 
"better to give up ideas of scholarship for him, and hand him 
over to the dancing-master, we yet deem that profession best 
for every man which chords most nearly with the bent of his 
mind, and which he can embrace without compromise of his 
social standing. To no other cause, perhaps, is failure in life 
so frequently to be traced as to a mistaken calling. A youth 
who might become a first-rate mechanic chances to have been 
born of ambitious parents, who think it more honorable for 
their son to handle the lancet than the chisel, and so would 
make him a doctor. Accordingly he is sent to college, pitch- 
forked through a course of Latin and Greek, attends lectures, 
crams for an examination, gets a diploma, and, with "all his 
blushing honors thick upon his vacant head," settles down to 
kill people scientifically, — to pom*, as Voltaire said, drugs of 
which he knows little into bodies of which he knows less, — 
till his incapacity is discovered, when he starves. In another 
case, a boy is forced by unwise parents to measure tape and 
calico, when writs and replevins are written in every lineament 
of his physiognomy, and Nature shows by his intellectual 
acumen, — by his skill in hair-splitting, Ins adroitness at parry 
and thrust, Ins fertility of resources in every exigency, and a 
score of other signs, — that she designed him, not to handle the 
yard-stick, but to thunder in the forum. Or, again, a skilful 
engineer is spoiled in a shoemaker, or a lad designed for a 
shoemaker is trained for the literary profession, reminding you 
of Lessing's sarcasm : — 

" Tompkins forsakes his last and awl 
For literary squabbles ; 
Styles himself poet ; but his trade 
Remains the same, — he cobbles." 

In no other calling is the proportion of failures to successes 
so great as in that of trade, the mercantile profession. Per- 
sons who have been at pains to collect statistics on this sub- 
ject in our large towns have found that only three out of a 



38 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

hundred merchants are successful; all the others becoming 
bankrupt, or retiring in disgust. Why is this? Is it, in 
every case, because they are overwhelmed by sudden disaster, 
which no sagacity could have anticipated or warded off 1 ? be- 
cause they are dishonest, and, after long overreaching others, 
are overreached themselves 1 because, after many brilliant win- 
nings at the gaming-table, they stake all, and lose all ? because, 
after partial success, they expect greater, and build marble pal- 
aces, drive " two-forty " horses, and make larger investments in 
champagne suppers than in bonds and mortgages 1 Is it be- 
cause Shylock eats them up with his two per cent, or because 
of the exploded folly in some new form of investing in eternal 
lottery tickets, and drawing eternal blanks ? No ; these causes 
are only the result of a more radical cause, namely, that they 
have gone into business without business brains. No father, 
as a general thing, educates his son to be a musician, without 
first making sure that he has a natural ear for music. But 
hundreds and thousands of fathers make merchants of their 
sons, who have no more actual fitness for trade than has a man 
to play at the Academy of Music who cannot distinguish a flat 
from a sharp, or the " Heroic Symphony " from the tune of 
" Old Hundred." 

Above all, the notion that the " three black graces," Law, 
Physic, and Divinity, must be worshipped by the candidate 
for respectability and honor, has done incalculable damage to 
society. It has spoiled many a good carpenter, done injustice 
to the sledge and the anvil, cheated the goose and the shears 
out of their rights, and committed fraud on the corn and the 
potato field. Thousands have died of broken hearts in these 
professions, — thousands who might have been happy at the 
plough, or opulent behind the counter; thousands, dispirited 
and hopeless, look upon the healthful and independent calling 
of the farmer with envy and chagrin ; and thousands more, by 
a worse fate still, are reduced to necessities which degrade 
them in their own estimation, rendering the most brilliant 
success but a wretched compensation for the humiliation with 



CHOICE OF A PKOFESSION. 39 

which it is accompanied, and compelling them to grind out of 
the miseries of their fellow-men the livelihood which is denied 
to their legitimate exertions. The result of all this is, that 
the world is full of men who, disgusted with their vocations, 
getting their living by their weakness instead of by their 
strength, are doomed to hopeless inferiority. " If you choose 
to represent the various parts in life," says Sydney Smith, 
" by holes in a table of different shapes, — some circular, some 
triangular, some square, some oblong, — and the persons acting 
these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall gen- 
erally find that the triangular person has got into the square 
hole, the oblong into the triangular, while the square person 
has squeezed himself into the round hole." A French writer 
on agriculture observes that it is impossible profitably to im- 
prove land by trying forcibly to change its natural character, 
— as by bringing sand to clay, or clay to sand. The only true 
method is to adapt the cultivation to the nature of the soil. 
So with the moral or intellectual qualities. Exhortation, self- 
determination, may do much to stimulate and prick a man on 
in a wrong career against his natural bent ; but, when the 
crisis comes, this artificial character thus laboriously induced will 
break down, failing at the very time when it is most wanted. 

The sentiment, " Our wishes are presentiments of our capa- 
bilities," is a noble maxim, of deep encouragement to all true 
men; and it is not more encouraging than it is true. Can 
anything be more reasonable than to suppose that he who, in 
attending to the duties of his profession, can gratify the pre- 
dominant faculty, the reigning passion of the mind, who can 

strike 

"The master-string 
That makes most harmony or discord in him," 

will be, cceteris paribus, the most successful *? The very fact that 
he has an original bias, a fondness and a predilection for a cer- 
tain pursuit, is the best possible guaranty that he will follow it 
faithfully. His love for it, aside from all other motives, will 
insure the intensest application to it as a matter of course. "No 



40 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

need of spurs to the little Handel or the boy Bach to study 
music, when one steals midnight interviews with a smuggled 
clavichord in a secret attic, and the other copies whole books 
of studies by moonlight, for want of a candle, churlishly 
denied. No need of whips to the boy-painter, West, when he 
begins in a garret, and plunders the family cat for bristles to 
make his brushes. On the other hand, to spend years at col- 
lege, at the work-bench, or in a store, and then find that the 
calling is a wrong one, is disheartening to all but men of the 
toughest fibre. The discovery shipwrecks the feeble, and 
plunges ordinary minds into despair. Doubly trying is this 
discovery when one feels that the mistake was made in defiance 
of friendly advice, or to gratify a freak of fancy or an idle whim. 
The sorrows that come upon us by the will of God, or through 
the mistakes of our parents, we can submit to with comparative 
resignation; but the sorrows which we have wrought by our 
own hand, the pitfalls into which we have fallen by obsti- 
nately going our own way, these are the sore places of memory 
which no time and no patience can salve over. 

And yet what " trifles, light as air," often decide a young 
man's calling, leading one to choose that for which nature 
designed him, another to choose the very one for which he has 
the least aptitude ! It has been said of our race that we are 
" not only pleased, but turned by a feather ; the history of man 
is a calendar of straws." The force of early impressions in 
determining the choice of a profession is often deep and con- 
trolling. Thus David Hume, who in Ins youth was a believer 
in Cliristianity, was appointed in a debating society to advo- 
cate the cause of infidelity, and thus familiarizing himself with 
the subtle sophisms of scepticism, became a life-long deist. 
Voltaire, it is said, at the age of five committed to memory a 
sceptical poem, and the impressions made upon his mind were 
never obliterated. There was an intimate connection between 
the little cannon and the mimic armies with which the boy 
Napoleon amused himself, and the martial achievements of the 
Emperor ; between the miniature ship which Nelson, when a 




ROBERT BURNS, 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 41 

boy, sailed on the pond, and the victories of the Nile and 
Trafalgar; between the tales and songs about ghosts, fairies, 
witches, warlocks, wraiths, apparitions, etc., with which the 
mind of Burns was fed in his boyhood by the superstitious old 
woman domesticated under the same roof with himself, and the 
tale of Tarn O'Shanter ; between the old traditions and legends 
which formed the staple of Scott's early reading, and the bril- 
liant fictions with which the " Wizard of the North " charmed 
the world ; between the story of a farmer's son who went 
away to seek his fortune, and came home after many years a 
rich man, — which George Law, a farmer's boy, found in an 
old, stray volume, — and the subsequent career of George Law 
the steamboat king and millionnaire. 

It is said of the great philanthropist, Thomas Clarkson, that 
when he was a competitor for a prize for an essay at Cambridge, 
he had never thought upon the subject to be handled, which 
was, " May one man lawfully enslave another 1 " Chancing one 
day to pick up in a friend's house a newspaper advertising a 
History of Guinea, he hastened to London, bought the work, 
and there found a picture of cruelties that filled his soul with 
horror. " Coming one day in sight of Wade's mill in Hertford- 
shire," he says, " I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the 
roadside, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my 
mind, that, if the contents of this essay were true, it was time 
that some person should see those calamities to their end." It 
was but a straw that decided the destiny of Demosthenes, 
when, burning with shame, he rushed from the Athenian 
assembly, resolved, doubtless, never again to ascend the bema. 
He met Satyrus, learned the art of elocution, and when he next 
addressed the people, his lip was roughened by no grit of the 
pebble. Again, Socrates, meeting Xenophon in a narrow gate- 
way, checks his course by placing a stick across the path, and 
addresses to him a question in morals. Xenophon cannot 
answer, and the philosopher, bidding him follow, becomes 
thenceforward his master in ethics. "These incidents were 
shadows of leaves on the stream ; but they conducted Deinos- 



42 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

thenes into the temple of eloquence, and placed Xenophon by 
the side of Livy." 

Let every one, then, who would get on in the world, study 
his aptitudes, — for what calling he is naturally fit. "We are 
aware that some men, and men of sagacity, too, have denied 
this doctrine of natural tendencies, and held that any person, 
by dint of energy, may become whatever he chooses. Lord 
Chesterfield held this view. Any young man, he declared, if 
j he will but take the pains, may become as learned, eloquent, 
graceful, and agreeable as he pleases. Without the slightest 
reference to natural aptitude, he may confidently set about 
making himself a courtier, a diplomatist, an orator, in short, 
anything but a poet, and he need not utterly despair of success 
in verse. Acting on these principles, his Lordship labored for 
years to mould his dull, heavy, loutish son, Stanhope, into a 
graceful man of fashion. A more absurd scheme was never 
attempted, and the result was what might have been expected, 
— utter failure. There are thousands of such cases where a 
parent might as well tell a son to be six feet high as to be elo- 
quent, to have a Eoman nose as to be graceful, to write like 
Hawthorne as to bow like the Due de Bichelieu. As Sainte- 
Beuve says : " On est toujours Tesclave de son premier talent." 
Doubtless the natural bent is sometimes hard to discern ; but 
as the boy is father of the man, so he generally shows Avhat 
sort of a man he is likely to turn out. Talents for special 
kinds of work are congenital, and men have often their callings 
forecast in the very sockets of their eyeballs and in the bul- 
gings of their thumbs. Even if we deny the whole doctrine of 
inborn aptitudes, and believe that the differences in men's capa- 
bilities, tastes, and tendencies are the effects of external cir- 
cumstances, yet it must be admitted that these differences are 
fixed too early to be removed. Michael Angelo neglected 
school to copy drawings which he dared not bring home. Mu- 
rillo filled the margin of his school-book with drawings. Dry- 
den read Polybius before he was ten years old. Le Brun, in 
childhood, drew with a piece of charcoal on the walls of the 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 43 

house. Pope wrote excellent verses at fourteen. Pascal com- 
posed at sixteen a tractate on the Conic Sections. Lawrence 
painted beautifully when a mere boy. Madame de Stael was 
deep in the philosophy of politics at an age when other girls 
were dressing dolls. Nelson had made up his mind to be a 
hero before he was old enough to be a midshipman ; and Napo- 
leon was already at the head of armies when pelting snow-balls 
at Brienne. 

Dry den, who was an illustration of his own theory, has 
aptly marked the three steps in the career of most men of 
genius : — 

" What the child admired, 
The youth endeavored, and the man acquired." 

In many cases so early is the preference manifested, that it 
would seem as if the callings, impatient to be chosen, selected 
their own agents, and storming heart, hands, and brain, made 
them captive to their will. "We are not surprised," says a 
writer, " to hear from a schoolfellow of the Chancellor Soniers 
that he was a weakly boy, who always had a book in his hand, 
and never looked up at the play of his companions ; to iearn 
from his affectionate biographer that Hammond at Eton sought 
opportunities of stealing away to say his prayers ; to read that 
Tournefort forsook his college class, that he might search for 
plants in the neighboring fields ; or that Smeaton, in petticoats, 
was discovered on the top of his father's barn, in the act of 
fixing the model of a windmill which he had constructed. 
These early traits of character are such as we expect to find in 
the cultivated lawyer, who turned the eyes of his age upon 
Milton ; in the Christian, whose life was one varied strain of 
devout praise ; in the naturalist, who enriched science by his 
discoveries ; and in the engineer, who built the Eddystone 
lighthouse." 

When that prodigy of genius and precocity, Chatterton, 
"the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul, that perished in his 
pride," was but eight years old, a manufacturer, desiring to pre- 
sent him with a cup, asked him what device should be in- 



44 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

scribed on it. "Paint me an angel," was the reply, "with 
wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." 
So Ferguson's wooden clock ; Davy's laboratory at Penzance ; 
Faraday's electric machine, made with a bottle; Claude Lor- 
raine's flour and charcoal pictures on the walls of the baker's 
shop; John Ley den's secret studies in the country church; 
Bacon's exposure of the defects of Aristotle's philosophy, made 
at the age of sixteen; Calhoun's subtle disputations in the 
class-room, with the President of Yale College; Chantrey's 
carving of his schoolmaster's head in a bit of pine wood, — 
were all hints of the future man. It is said that when Rachel, 
the actress, threw a tablecloth round her person, she was 
draped on the instant with a becomingness which all the 
modistes that ever fractured stay-lace, or circumlocuted crino- 
line, never imparted to the female figure before. She had a 
genius for it, as Brummell had for tying his cravat. Thou- 
sands choked themselves in imitating the Beau's knot, but in 
vain; the secret died with him, and is now among the lost 
arts. 

Everybody knows what miracles of success were once 
achieved by the Jesuits in the education of youth. What was 
the secret of the astonishing influence they exercised over the 
world, but the sagacity they showed in placing each of their 
pupils in the sphere for which nature had specially organized 
him? Who can doubt that such a system of education, if 
adopted among us, would add immensely to the moral power 
of the Republic? When the Scotch dominie concluded that 
David Wilkie " was much fonder of drawing than of reading, 
could paint much better than he could write," did he not 
show far more sagacity than if, possessed of the insane idea 
that Greek and Latin only can make a man, he had drilled 
and flogged until the youthful spirit had become soured and 
incapacitated for its themes of humor 1 ? If the boy Carnot, 
who cried out his disapprobation of some poor tactics in a mil- 
itary show on the stage, had been sent into a mine, we might 
never have known of the man who could direct, at one and the 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 45 

6ame time, the movements of fourteen armies. Had Mendels- 
sohn's father discouraged, instead of carefully nurturing, that 
musical genius which, at the age of eight, detected, in a con- 
certo of Bach, six of those dread offences against the grammar 
of music, consecutive fifths, we should never have believed 
that the tricksiness of Puck, the delicate grace of Titania, and 
the elvish majesty of Oberon could be so translated into 
music as to form a perfect tone-picture of Shakespeare's 
dream. There is hardly any person who is not qualified to 
shine in some profession, and it is far better to be at the head 
of an inglorious calling than at the foot of one which the world 
calls respectable. , Better be the Napoleon of boot-blacks, or 
the Alexander of chimney-sweeps, than a briefless and shallow- 
pated attorney, who, like necessity, " knows no law," watching 
vainly for victims in an unswept chamber, where " cobwebs in 
dusty magnificence hang," with no companions but the 
gaunt spider, a few dog-eared, bilious-looking volumes, and a 
stale political newspaper ; or become partner with Death, as 
the sulky rattles and squeaks on the highway, with barely 
acquirement enough in it to pass for doctor. Whatever na- 
ture intended you for, that be, if only a counter or tail-piece. 
Never desert your true sphere, your own line of talent. If 
Providence qualified you only to write couplets for sugar-horns, 
or to scribble editorials for the Bunkumville Spread-Eagle, 
stick to the couplets or the editorials ; a good couplet for a 
sugar-horn is-, more respectable than a villanous epic poem in 
twelve books.' 

The fact that a youth who fails in one calling and at one 
kind of business may be eminently successful in another is 
well illustrated by an incident related in Macmillan's Maga- 
zine. A young man, whose bluntness was such that every 
effort to turn him to account in a linen-drapery establishment 
was found unavailing, received from his employer the custom- 
ary note that he would not suit, and must go. " But I 'm good 
for something," remonstrated the poor fellow, loath to be turned 
out into the street. " You are good for nothing as a salesman," 



46 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

said the principal, regarding him from his selfish point of view. 
" I am sure I can be useful," repeated the young man. " How t 
tell me how." "I don't know, sir; I don't know." "Nor 
do I." And the principal laughed as he saw the eagerness of 
the lad displayed. " Only don't put me away, sir ; don't put 
me away. Try me at something besides selling. I cannot sell, 
I know I cannot sell." " I know that, too ; that is what is 
wrong." " But I can make myself useful somehow ; I know I 
can." The blunt boy, who could not be turned into a sales- 
man, and whose manner was so little captivating that he was 
nearly sent about his business, was accordingly tried at some- 
thing else. He was placed in the counting-house, where his 
aptitude for figures soon showed itself, and in a few years he 
became not only chief cashier in the concern, but eminent as 
an accountant throughout the country. 

It is true, as we have said before, that the proclivities of men 
are not always glaringly manifest in youth. Even the phoe- 
nixes of the race do not always come into the world under con- 
ditions prophetic of their particular and salient gifts. There 
are few millionnaires who were born with "silver spoons in 
their mouths " ; few warriors who can boast with Owen Glen- 
dower, that, at their nativity, " the front of Heaven was full 
of fiery shapes " ; few jockeys, who, if asked whether they 
can ride on horseback, can answer with Mark Meddle, the 
dashing gentleman in "London Assurance," that they were 
born on horseback. Nor is unfitness for a calling marked, in 
all cases, as unmistakably as in that of John Adams, when his 
father, a shoemaker, undertook to teach him that craft. It is 
said that his parent one day gave him some " uppers " to cut 
out by a pattern that had a three-cornered hole in it, by which 
it had hung upon a nail ; and it was found that the lad had 
followed the pattern exactly, triangular hole and all ! It is 
true, also, that vanity is apt to fool men here ; that young per- 
sons are exceedingly apt to overrate their abilities, or to mistake 
their quality ; and you will, perhaps, cite the scores of prosaic 
youths who annually come to town with their carpet-bags burst- 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 47 

ing with romances or epics in twenty-four books, or will per- 
haps ask, Did not Liston imagine that he was born to play 
" Macbeth " 1 and did not Douglas Jerrold project a treatise on 
natural philosophy 1 Did not David, the painter, fancy he was 
cut out for a diplomatist 1 Did not Jonquil, who painted flow- 
ers and fruits so exquisitely, begin with enormous cartoons] 
Ajid where is the Jones who has spouted in a debating club 
that does not imagine himself an embryo Clay, destined to 
electrify the United States Senate by his tremendous outbursts 
against some future Jackson or Van Buren 1 Doubtless mis- 
takes are made, even more egregious than these ; yet, after all 
deductions, the general truth remains that men are designed 
for particular callings, and that it is unwise to neglect those 
callings for others. Some boys are fitted for mechanical pur- 
suits, others just as evidently for commercial. Scholastic pur- 
suits disgust some, who yawn over every book in spite of the 
pedagogue's frown ; while others, who have no taste for farm- 
ing, or trading, or mechanical labor, are all alive when bending 
over a volume of history, or following pious ^Eneas in his wan- 
derings, or watching the revelations of the microscope. Even 
where nature's indications are obscure, it is not safe to neglect 
them. The proclivities of the mind may be none the less 
strong, though latent, and it is the parent's duty to watch long 
and patiently till he is certain what they are. With the skill 
of a chemist, he must apply all the intellectual tests till they 
are exhausted ; sometimes watching the mind's unrestrained 
seekings, sometimes bringing the world's stores, and laying 
them at its feet for a choice. The head of the Caxtons, in 
Bulwer's novel, will furnish him a hint here, worthy of a more 
practical head than that of a cloistered student. While direct- 
ing his son's studies, he recollects that he had read, in a certain 
Greek writer, how some man, to save his bees a troublesome 
flight to Hymettus, cut their wings, and placed before them the 
finest flowers he could select. But the poor bees made no 
honey ; so he determined that his young Pisistratus should 
search for his own honey. 



48 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Fortunately for the world, in men of great genius the bent 
of the mind is so strong that it is not in the power of foolish 
fathers to resist it. Long even before manhood, their souls are 
haunted by a certain object, which, like the ghost of Miltiades 
in the case of the Athenian statesman, will not let them sleep. 
They choose a particular pursuit, not because they deem it the 
best, because it promises the most glory, money, or happiness, 
but because they cannot help it, and for the same reason they 
adhere to it while life lasts. All they know is, that they love 
what they are about, and they give their whole souls to it ac- 
cordingly. You may chain down their genius, for a while, to 
ungrateful, to menial tasks ; but there comes a time at last, 
perhaps without any warning of revolt, when it will no longer 
consent " to harrow the valleys, or be bound with the band in 
the furrow " ; when " it laughs at the multitude of the city, and 
regards not the crying of the driver " ; when, sternly refusing 
longer to make ropes out of sand, it carves a statue, or paints a 
picture, or " builds the lofty rhyme," and you have an Apollo, a 
Madonna, or a Divine Comedy, as fate or inspiration directs. 
There was Hogarth, there was Correggio ; what enabled these 
great artists to gain the perfection, in their several ways, which 
afterward surprised and ravished mankind 1 " Not a mother's 
approving smile, nor a father's frown ; not the help of teachers, 
nor the world's premature applause; but the vivid, tingling 
delight with which the one seized upon a grotesque incident 
or expression, ' the rapt soul sitting in the eyes ' of the 
other, as he drew a saint or an angel from the skies." 

"We cannot close our observations on this topic without 
adding a caution touching the importance of adhering to the 
profession which one has deliberately chosen. In hours of 
despondency, or when smarting under some disappointment, a 
young man is apt to fancy that in some other calling he would 
have been more successful. It is so easy, while regarding it at 
a distance, to look at its bright side only, shutting the eyes at 
what is ugly and disagreeable, — it is so easy to dream of the 
resolution and tenacity of purpose with which he would follow 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 49 

it, and to mount up in imagination to its most dazzling honors, 
and clutch them in defiance of every rival, — that it is not 
strange that men abandon their professions for others for which 
they are less fitted. But when we reflect that the man remains 
the same, whatever his calling, — that a mere change of his 
position can make no radical change of his mind, either by 
adding to its strength or diminishing its weakness, — we shall 
conclude that in many cases what he is in one calling, that he 
would be, substantially, in any other, and that he will gain 
nothing by the exchange. 

Of course, as we have already shown, one may err so egre- 
giously in the choice of his calling that to abandon it and 
choose anew is a necessity. Again, hundreds find themselves 
out of place through accident, early associations, the unwise 
choice of parents, a boyish freak or whim. But a young man 
should be slow to believe this of himself, especially after he 
has acquired much valuable experience, and should try another 
calling only after repeated failures in the most desperate at- 
tempts to succeed. ~No man will work with heart and energy 
while, he is haunted by the idea that in some other vocation he 
might do better. It is by no means certain that had you 
chosen your calling, instead of your parents choosing it for 
you, you would have chosen well. Have you never noted the 
fact mentioned by a shrewd writer, "In a masquerade, where 
people assume what characters they like, how ill they often 
play them % " The great weakness of our young men is fickle- 
ness ; and, where one of them perseveres in a calling which 
he ought to abandon, a dozen abandon their callings who ought 
to stick to them. The better the profession the more likely 
they are to do this ; for all those kinds of business which are 
surest in the end, which pay best in the long run, are slowest in 
beginning to yield a return. It is natural, too, when one sees 
lions in his way, to fancy that all the other roads are clear of 
them. But nothing can be achieved without tenacity of pur- 
pose ; do not, therefore, give up your deliberately chosen call- 
ing, unless the arguments for retreating are far weightier than 
those for going on. 



50 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Finally, we would say to every young man, whatever calling 
you feel compelled to pursue do not affect to despise it. Do not 
boast of the heights to which your genius might have soared, 
had it not been tethered to the earth ; of the brilliant tilings 
you might have done, had you not been " cabined, cribbed, and 
confined " in a mean and narrow sphere. Such talk may seem 
to you very fine, and you may fancy that those who hear it 
will regard it as an index of a high and noble spirit, conscious 
of grander powers than it has had an opportunity of exhibiting. 
But you can scarcely make a more egregious mistake. "What 
you say may be true ; but the world, which deems success the 
only test of merit, and that ninety-nine men out of a hundred 
find their just level, will ascribe it to vanity. The popular 
opinion will always be, that, wherever extraordinary ability 
exists, it will find out some way to make itself known ; and 
wherever there is not this pre-eminent force of genius, the 
injustice done to a man's powers will, in the long run, scarcely 
be perceptible. Is your calling a humble one 1 Ennoble it by 
the manner in which you discharge its duties, and you will 
challenge the respect of all whose good opinion is worth hav- 
ing. The day has long gone by when a man needed to hang 
down his head because of the humbleness of his vocation, 
however useful. Lord Townsend, who introduced the culture 
of the turnip into England, was nicknamed " Turnip Town- 
send " by the wits of a licentious court ; but there are few 
persons to-day who would not admit that he did more for 
his country thereby than was done by all the popinjays that 
have spread their butterfly wings in the sunshine of the British 
court from the days of Charles II. to those of Victoria. Dr. 
Johnson said of some one sneeringly, that his conversation 
" savored of bullocks " ; yet the world could as well have dis- 
pensed with a Johnson as with a Colling or a Bakewell. It is 
not the calling or station in life that gives dignity or nobility 
to the man, but the man that dignifies the station or calling. 
It is with real life as with the mimic life of the stage. All the 
players cannot have the principal parts, even when all are 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 51 

fitted for them ; but the play never goes oft more finely, nor 
elicits more enthusiastic applause, than when the characters, 
even down to the most unimportant, have been personated by 
men of far greater ability than they have been required to 
display. 



52 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PHYSICAL CULTUKE. 

To the strong hand and strong head, the capacious lungs and vigorous 
frame, fall, and will always fall, the heavy burdens ; and where the heavy 
burdens fall, the great prizes fall too. — Laws of Life. 

It is said that the Duke of Wellington, when once looking on at the boys 
engaged in their sports in the playground at Eton, made the remark, " It was 
there that the battle of Waterloo was won ! " — Samuel Smiles. 

No man is in true health who cannot stand in the free air of heaven, with 
his feet on God's free turf, and thank his Creator for the oimpln luxury of 
physical existence. — T. W. Higginson. 

THE first element of success needed by him who has wisely 
chosen his calling is constitutional talent. By constitu- 
tional talent we mean the warmth and vigor imparted to a 
man's ideas by superior bodily stamina, by a stout physical 
constitution. Till within a recent period, bodiculture, if it may 
be so called, has been neglected, and almost despised, in this 
country. Our books for the young have been full of praises of 
the midnight oil ; our oracles of education have urged unspar- 
ing study; and Nocturna manu versate, v'ersate diurna, has 
been the favorite motto in all our colleges. It has been truly 
said that all the influences under which the young American, 
especially the student, of the last generation lived, taught him 
to despise the body, while the mind was goaded to a preternat- 
ural activity. They led him to associate muscle with rowdy- 
ism, ruddy cheeks with toddies, longwindedness with profane 
swearing, and broad shoulders with neglect of the ordinances 
of revealed religion. Tallness was the only sign of virtue tol- 
erated. Width and weight were held to indicate a steady ten- 
dency toward the State Prison, and the model young man 
became pale, lanky, dyspeptic, desiring to be all soul, and re- 



PHYSICAL CULTUKE. 53 

garding his body as the source of all his wretchedness. It is 
true the majority of youth protested against this theory, and 
refused to be goaded to suicidal study ; but not a few responded 
to the whip, with the results that are familiar to all. But 
within a few years a revolution has taken place in the public 
sentiment on this subject. We are beginning to see that the 
body, as well as the mind, has rights that must be respected. 
We are learning by bitter experience that if the mind, which 
rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample on its 
slave, the slave will not forgive the injury, but will rise and 
smite the oppressor. We are discovering that though the pale, 
sickly student may win the most prizes in college, it is the 
tough, sinewy one who will win the most prizes in life ; and 
that in every calling, other things being equal, the most suc- 
cessful man will be the one who has slept the soundest and 
digested the most dinners with the least difficulty. The doc- 
trine of Pascal, that " disease is the natural state of Christians," 
has now few believers. We cannot believe that the Creator 
thinks so ; else health would be the exception, and disease 
the rule. We rather hold the opinion of Dr. J. W. Alexander, 
who, when asked if he enjoyed the full assurance of faith, re- 
plied, " I think I do, except when the wind is from the east." 
It is now conceded on all hands that the mind has no right 
to build itself up at the expense of the body ; that it is no 
more justifiable in abandoning itself without restraint to its 
cravings, than the body in yielding itself to sensual indulgence. 
The acute stimulants, the mental drams, that produce this un- 
natural activity or overgrowth of the intellect, are as contrary 
to nature, and as hurtful to the man, as the coarser stimulants 
that unduly excite the body. The mind, it has been well said, 
should be a good, strong, healthy feeder, but not a glutton. 
When unduly stimulated, it wears out the mechanism of the 
body, like friction upon a machine not lubricated, and the 
growing weakness of the physical frame nullifies the power it 
encloses. " It is now generally conceded," says Henry Ward 
Beecher, in one of his late admirable lectures to the theological 



54 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

students of Yale College, " that there is an organization which 
we call the nervous system in the human body, to which be- 
long the functions of emotion, intelligence, and sensation, and 
that that is connected intimately with the whole circulation of 
the blood, with the condition of the blood as affected by the 
liver, and by aeration m the lungs ; that the manufacture of the 
blood is dependent upon the stomach ; so a man is what he is, 
not in one part or another, but all over ; one part is intimately 
connected with the other, from the animal stomach to the 
throbbing brain ; and when a man thinks, he thinks the whole 
trunk through. Man's power comes from the generating forces 
that are in him, namely, the digestion of nutritious food into 
vitalized blood, made fine by oxygenation ; an organization by 
which that blood has free course to flow and be glorified ; a 
neck that will allow the blood to run up and down easily ; a 
brain properly organized and balanced; the whole system so 
compounded as to have susceptibilities and recuperative force ; 
immense energy to generate resources and facility to give them 
out ; — all these elements go to determine what a man's work- 
ing power is." 

To do his work cheerfully and well, every professional man 
needs a working constitution, and this can be got only by daily 
exercise in the open air. The atmosphere we breathe is an ex- 
halation of all the minerals of the globe, the most elaborately 
finished of all the Creator's works, — the rock of ages disin- 
tegrated and prepared for the life of man. Draughts of this 
are the true stimulants, more potent and healthful than cham- 
pagne or cognac, " so cheap at the custom-house, so dear at the 
hotels." The thorough aeration of the blood by deep inhala- 
tions of air, so as to bring it in contact with the whole breath- 
ing surface of the lungs, is indispensable to him who would 
maintain that full vital power on which the vigorous working- 
power of the brain so largely depends. Sydney Smith tells 
public speakers that if they would walk twelve miles before 
speaking, they would never break down. The English people 
understand this, and hence at the Universities boat-races, 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 55 

horseback rides, and ten-mile walks are practically a part of 
the educational course. English lawyers and members of Par- 
liament acquire vigor of body and clearness of head for their 
arduous labors by riding with the hounds, shooting grouse on 
the Scottish moors, throwing the fly into the waters of Norway, 
or climbing the Alpine cliffs. Peel, Brougham, Lyndhurst, 
Campbell, Bright, Gladstone, — nearly all the great political 
and legal leaders, the prodigious workers at the bar and in the 
senate, — have been full-chested men, who have been as sedu- 
lous to train their bodies as to train their intellects. If our 
American leaders accomplish less, and die earlier, it is because 
they neglect the care of the body, and put will-force in the 
place of physical strength. 

It is no exaggeration to say that health is a large ingredient 
in what the world calls talent. A man without it may be a 
giant in intellect, but his deeds will be the deeds of a dwarf. 
On the contrary, let him have a quick circulation, a good di- 
gestion, the bulk, thews, and sinews of a man, and the alacrity, 
the unthinking confidence inspired by these, and, though hav- 
ing but a thimbleful of brains, he will either blunder upon 
success or set failure at defiance. It is true, especially in this 
country, that the number of centaurs in every community — of 
men in whom heroic intellects are allied with bodily constitu- 
tions as tough as those of horses — is small ; that, in general, 
a man has reason to think himself well off in the lottery of 
life, if he draw the prize of a healthy stomach without a mind, 
or the prize of a fine intellect with a crazy stomach. But of 
the two, a weak mind in a herculean frame is better than a 
giant mind in a crazy constitution. A pound of energy with 
an ounce of talent will achieve greater results than a pound of 
talent with an ounce of energy. The first requisite to suc- 
cess in life is to be a good animal. In any of the learned 
professions a vigorous constitution is equal to at least fifty per 
cent more brain. Wit, judgment, imagination, eloquence, all 
the qualities of the mind, attain thereby a force and splendor 
to which they could never approach without it. But intellect 



56 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

in a weak body is " like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket." 
A mechanic may have tools of the sharpest edge and highest 
polish ; but what are these, without a vigorous arm and hand 1 
Of what use is it that your mind has become a vast granary 
of knowledge, if you have not strength to turn the key 1 

The effects of the culture of the body are strikingly seen in 
the nations of antiquity, with whom gymnastics and calisthenics 
were a part of the regular school education. Ancient philos- 
ophy, instead of despising the body as a mere husk or vile 
outside of human nature, regarded it as a true part of the man, 
the contempt or neglect of which would provoke a fearful re- 
taliation upon the whole being. The gymnastics of the Greeks 
were not practised by the boxers and wrestlers only, the drill- 
sergeants and corporals of that day, but went on under the 
solemn sanction of sages. The orators, philosophers, poets, 
warriors, and statesmen of Greece and Kome gained strength 
of mind as well as of muscle by the systematic drill of the 
palaestra. The brain was filled thereby with a quick-pulsing 
and finely oxygenated blood, the nerves made healthy and 
strong, the digestion sharp and powerful, and the whole phys- 
ical man, as the statues of antiquity show, developed into the 
fullest health and vigor. \ It is told of Cicero that he became, 
at one period of his life, the victim of that train of maladies 
expressed by the word " dyspepsia," — maladies which pursue 
the indolent and the overworked man as the shark follows in 
the wake of the plague-ship. The orator hastened, not to the 
physicians, which might have hastened his death, but to Greece ; 
flung himself into the gymnasium; submitted to its regimen 
for two entire years ; and returned to the struggles of the 
forum as vigorous as the peasants that tilled his farm. Who 
doubts that, by this means, his periods were rounde*d out to a 
more majestic cadence, and his crushing arguments clinched 
with a tighter grasp 1 Had he remained a dyspeptic, he might 
have written beautiful essays on old age and friendship, but he 
never would have pulverized Catiline, or blasted Antony with 
his lightnings. \ So the intellectual power of those giants of 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 57 

antiquity, Aristotle and Plato, was owing in a large degree to 
that harmonious education in which the body shared as well as 
the mind. That the one ruled the world of thought down to 
the time of Bacon, and that the other is stimulating and 
quickening the mind of the nineteenth century, are owing in 
part to the fact that they were not only great geniuses, but, as 
one has well said, geniuses most happily set, and that no dys- 
pepsia broke the harmony of their thought, no neuralgia 
twinged the system with agony, and no philosopher's ail in- 
fected the throat with bad blood or an ulcerated mucous mem- 
brane. 

The success of men gifted, apparently, with nothing but 
constitutional talent, and the frequency with which men 
endowed with the finest intellectual powers, but powers sup- 
ported by a couple of spindle-shanks and a weak body, have dis- 
appointed the expectations of their admirers, have led some per- 
sons almost to regard the stomach as the seat of intellect, and 
genius and eupepsy as convertible terms. Eidiculous as this 
may seem, it is certain that the brain is often credited with 
achievements that belong to the digestion. Everything shows 
that the greatness of our great men is as much a bodily affair as 
a mental one. Nature presented our Websters, Clays, and 
Calhouns, not only with extraordinary minds, but — what has 
quite as much to do with the matter — with wonderful bodies. 
Above all, our Grants, Shermans, and Sheridans, what would 
they be without nerves of whipcord and frames of iron 1 Let 
Napoleon answer. The tortures of hereditary disease, united 
with the pangs of fever, wrung from that great captain, in one 
of the most critical days of his history, the exclamation that 
the first requisite of good generalship is good health. The 
efficiency of the common soldier, too, he knew depended, first 
of all, upon his being in perfect health and splendid condition ; 
and hence he tried to bring up all his troops to the condition 
of pugilists when they fight for the championship. This was 
the secret of their prodigious efforts, their endurance of fatigues 
that would have killed common men. Even in literature, 
3* 



58 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

a robust frame has become absolutely indispensable to great 
and lasting success. Time was when an author wrote only 
with his head, — with the superior and intellectual part, — 
the essence of his being. But to-day, owing to the enormous 
labor which he imposes upon himself, or which society im- 
poses on him at short notice, — owing, also, to the necessity 
he is under of striking quick and telling blows, — he has no 
time to be so platonic and delicate. A writer's works in this 
nineteenth century are the offspring, not merely of his brain, 
but of his blood and muscles. His physiology and hygiene, — • 
his entire organization, — have become an indispensable chap- 
ter in every analysis of his talent. 

Look, again, at the pulpit. Who can estimate the accession 
of energy, of intellectual and moral power, which it would 
receive if our clergymen, instead of remaining the pale, ghostly 
looking, over-read, over-fed, intellectually blase spectres they so 
often are, should spend a part of their time in getting up annual 
power to back up their attenuated intellectual power 2 John 
Knox was not a dwarf nor a dyspeptic. Latimer and Luther 
were stalwart men, who could have knocked down an opponent 
first, and put him down in argument afterward. Isaac Barrow 
was a vigorous pugilist in his youth ; Andrew Fuller, when a 
farmer's boy, was skilled in boxing ; and Adam Clarke, when 
a lad, could "roll large stones about" as easily as he could 
afterwards roll over a theological adversary in manhood. 

The success of the English people — their victories on the 
field, in the mart, and in the study — has been largely owing 
to physical training. John Bull is a large feeder, but he is a 
hard worker too ; he loves the open air, and keeps mind and 
body vigorous by constant exercise. The effect of this upon 
the efficiency of men is strikingly seen in the achievements of 
the British army and navy, whose soldiers and sailors are sur- 
passed in toughness and powers of endurance by no others in 
the world. That the splendid empires which England has 
founded in every quarter of the globe have had their origin 
largely in the football contests at Eton, the boat-races on the 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 59 

Thames, and the cricket-matches on her downs and heaths, 
who can doubt 1 ? The race so widely dominant, — "whose 
morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company 
with the hours, circles the earth with one continual, unbroken 
strain of the martial airs of England," — is dominant because 
its institutions cultivate self-reliance, and its breeding develops 
endurance, courage, and pluck. There are some croakers who 
talk much of England's decline, and predict that she will prove 
an easy prey whenever any of the continental vultures choose to 
swoop down upon her. But there is little danger of this while 
" the silver-coasted isle " is defended by the stalwart men she yet 
produces. In allusion to the fears of some Englishmen on this 
subject, a London paper some years ago indulged in the follow- 
ing well-founded boast : — "If any of the home-keeping deni- 
zens of London are alarmed by the extraordinary naval prepa- 
rations which Louis Napoleon is said to be making, we would 
advise them to go down and take a look at the Imperial yacht 
which is now lying at Deptford. As a vessel, she is in every 
respect a match for our royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert. 
But look at her sailors. They have been strolling about our 
streets for some days past, exciting wonder wherever they 
have gone. What pretty little fellows they are ! What dandy 
shirts they wear ! what natty enamelled hats ! How they 
remind us of ballet girls, dressed out for a hornpipe in a nau- 
tical pantomime. Pretty, truly ; but their slender knees are 
not made to cling to a giddy maintop in a gale. Their deli- 
cate fingers are not designed to grasp a rough, tarred rope, and 
hold on, like grim death, when the fate of the ship and its 
crew rests upon the strength, the daring, and the rugged skill 
of one man. There they trip along, a batch of French ' able 
seamen,' looking, at the best, like the apprentices of an Eng- 
lish war-ship. The big, burly, hard-fisted British tar, who 
comes lumbering down the street, looks as if he could eat one 
of them with ease. They are like a litter of Italian grey- 
hounds by the side of that huge English mastiff. Our rivals, 
then, whoever they may be, may build as many iron-cased 



60 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

ships as they please. They cannot build sailors like ours. In 
that respect Nature and our insular position will always give 
us the advantage, if we only exercise the most ordinary vigi- 
lance in keeping the material of our fleet up to the require- 
ments and exigencies of the time." 

It is true there have been men who, despite of frail and 
miserable health, have done immortal things. Great and 
heroic were the achievements of Paul, "in bodily presence 
weak " ; of the blind Milton ; of Pascal, a confirmed invalid at 
eighteen ; of Johnson, bravely carrying through life the weight 
of a diseased and tortured body ; of Nelson, little and lame ; 
of Channing, with his frail, clayey tabernacle ; of the pale 
Lawrence, weighing from day to day the morsels of bread which 
alone his dyspeptic stomach could bear. It is true that Julius 
Csesar was troubled with epilepsy, and never planned a great 
battle without going into fits ; that the great Suwarrow stood 
but five feet one in his boots ; that Pope was a hunchback and 
an invalid ; and that Aristotle was a pygmy in body, though a 
giant in intellect. But these are brilliant exceptions, which 
only prove the rule. The general fact still remains that it is 
the man of tough and enduring fibre, of elastic nerve, of com- 
prehensive digestion, who does the great work of life. It is 
Scott, with his manly form ; it is Brougham, with his super- 
human powers of physical endurance. It is Franklin, at the 
age of seventy, camping out, on his way to arouse the Canadas, 
as our hardiest boys of twenty now camp out in the Adiron- 
dacks. It is Napoleon, sleeping four hours, and in the saddle 
twenty. Barely does the world behold such a spectacle as that 
presented in 1693 at Neerwinden in the Netherlands, when, 
among the one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers who 
were marshalled under the banners of all Europe, the two 
feeblest in body were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged on 
the fiery onset of Prance and the asthmatic skeleton who 
covered the slow retreat of England. 

Even the greatest poets have been those who, like Burns, 
have combined athletic bodies with souls of iEolian tones, who 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 61 

were blessed with good digestion as well as brains. The 
Greek poet, iEschylus, fought nobly for his country at Salamis ; 
and the trumpet that woke his countrymen to battle that 
morning still rings in his verse. Chaucer was a sturdy bard, 
as ready to fight as to write ; and, when some Londoners had 
accused him of untruth, " prepared his body for Mars his doing, 
if any contrairied his saws." There is no calling in which men 
do not need that sturdy vigor, that bodily strength and agility, 
without which all mental culture is but a preparation for disap- 
pointment and mortification. But, in the learned professions, 
a good constitution is doubly indispensable. There is nothing 
else which so taxes, tries, and exhausts the life-force as mental 
effort. Instead of being pale, delicate, feeble, and sickly, the 
thinker, whether in the law-office, the pulpit, the editorial 
room, the counting-room, or the hall of legislation, needs to be 
stalwart and hardy. He should have tougher thews, and 
stronger sinews, and a more vigorous pulse than the man who 
holds the plough or shoves the foreplane. It has been said, with 
not a little truth, that a small body has comparatively small 
chances of success ; " people will yield that to mere physical 
largeness which they will refuse to, or at least dispute with, 
littleness of body and self-distrust." No matter how true the 
rifle or the aim, a light ball will not carry far ; heavy men, like 
heavy bullets, do the most execution, and win the battle at 
long range. See Palmerston at fourscore still handling the 
helm of empire with the firm grasp of thirty ! Look at Lord 
Brougham ! That the King never dies, and that Brougham 
never sleeps, used to be the two leading features of English 
constitutional doctrine. One would think from his toughness, 
when almost ninety, that he was a son of old McDonald of 
Keppoch, the Scotch chieftain of whom it is told that, camping 
out one night with a portion of his clan, he went and kicked 
the snow from under his son's head, — which the youth had 
piled together so as to form a sort of pillow, — declaring that 
" the young rascal, by his degenerate effeminacy, would bring 
disgrace on the clan." The life of Brougham was a perpetual 



62 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

series of mental feats and triumphs over the trail physique of 
humanity. It is told that he once worked six days on a 
stretch, one hundred and forty-four hours, without sleep; 
then ran down from London into the country, slept from Sat- 
urday night till Monday morning, and returned and buckled 
to his work again, as fresh and elastic as ever. Is it not 
an immense advantage to have such a working constitution as 
this 1 — to be able, if a professional man, to endure for a whole 
week a perpetual strain on your brain, and, amid confinement 
and close air, with heaps of confused papers, law books, and 
books of reference to get through, to go on daily and nightly 
extracting therefrom liquid and transparent results, and find 
yourself, when you rise from your task, as elastic as a rubber 
ball 1 Is not a lawyer doubly sure of success who, after a fort- 
night's laborious attention to a suit, can rise up to address a 
jury with all his faculties as vigorous and eager for the contest 
as on the first day of the term, while his wilted and exhausted 
opponent has hardly more vitality than a bag of sand % 

On the other hand, of what avail are brilliant talents and a 
splendid education to a young man just entering manhood, who 
has a feeble constitution % It is Ulysses' bow in the hands of 
the suitors. He brings into the arena of life, to meet its fierce 
contests, to bear its hard shocks, to persevere in its long-con- 
tinued enterprises, and to subdue its impetuous oppositions, 
a shrivelled, puny body, limbs trembling with weakness and 
palsied with pain. His feeble system is borne down to the bed 
of sickness even by the operations of his own over-cultivated 
mind. The spirit is too strong for its tenement. The sword 
has worn through the scabbard. He hears the trumpet sound, 
and the busy hum of preparation, — his soul is " up in arms and 
eager for the fray," — but he cannot arise and equip himself for 
the battle. Opportunities of usefulness and of winning an 
honorable reputation crowd thick upon him ; but he feels a 
prostrating weakness, which, like an invisible enemy, creeps 
through his veins, and drinks the life-blood from his heart; 
and he languishes in pain and wretchedness, like Ivanhoe in 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. G3 

the castle of Front de Bceuf, unable to perform a solitary act in 
the fray on whose results hang all his most cherished hopes. 

Horace Mann, in a letter of advice to a law-student, justly 
remarks that a spendthrift of health is one of the most rep- 
rehensible of spendthrifts. " I am certain," continues he, "I 
could have performed twice the labor, both better and with 
greater ease to myself, had I known as much of the laws of 
health and life at twenty-one as I do now. In college I was 
taught all about the motions of the planets, as carefully as 
though they would have been in danger of getting or! the track 
if I had not known how to trace their orbits ; but about my 
own organization, and the conditions indispensable to the 
healthful functions of my own body, I was left in profound 
ignorance. ^Nothing could be more preposterous. I ought to 
have begun at home, and taken the stars when it should come 
their turn. The consequence was, I broke down at the begin- 
ning of my second college year, and have never had a well day 
since. Whatever labor I have since been able to do, I have 
done it all on credit instead of capital, — a most ruinous way, 
either in regard to health or money. For the last twenty-five 
years, so far as it regards health, I have been put, from day to 
day, on my good behavior ; and during the whole of this pe- 
riod, as an Hibernian would say, if I had lived as other folks 
do for a month, I should have died in a fortnight." 

Let, then, the man who is stripping for the race of life 
account no time or money as wasted that contributes in any 
way to his physical health, — that gives tone to the stomach, 
or development to the muscles. The life of the present day 
is lived so often at fever-heat, is so swift and restless, that the 
mental wear and tear is enormous. Xever before were men 
devoured by so insatiable an ambition, or scourged by so merci- 
less an activity, as in this latter half of the nineteenth century. 
It is the pace that kills. We need, therefore, all the vigor, 
all the " healthy animalism," that can be drawn from sport or 
play, to strengthen us for the struggle. It is true the profes- 
sional or business man needs health rather than strength. He 



64 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

need not boast the brawn of the gladiator. He need not 
be a Heenan or a Spartacus ; he need not lift a thousand 
pounds, nor walk a hundred miles in twenty-four hours. It 
is a sound constitution that most men want to do their work, 
. — in short, that condition of body and that amount of vital 
power which shall enable them to pursue their callings with 
the greatest amount of comfort to themselves and usefulness 
to others. It is true also that physical ability is required 
more in some callings than in others. But in all it is indis- 
pensable to leadership, and he who lacks it, though he may 
live a useful and reputable life, — may even become a first-rate 
second-rate man, — must not think to command. 



CONCENTRATION. OR ONENESS OF AIM. Qo 



CHAPTEE Y. 

CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 

One science only will one genius fit ; 

So wide is art, so narrow human wit. — Pope. 

" So it comes to pass that now, at last, the measure of a man's learning will 
be the amount of his voluntary ignorance ; the measure of his practical 
effectiveness, the amount of what he is content to leave unattempted." 

Be not simply good, — be good for something. — Thoreau. 

We should guard against a talent which we cannot hope to practise in per- 
fection. Improve it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit 
of the master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time 
and strength devoted to such botching. — Goethe. 

ANOTHER indispensable requisite to success is concentra- 
tion, or devotion to one object. 
The great State of New York, which leads the Union in 
commerce, has but one port upon the ocean, and none else- 
where of any importance. The State of New Jersey has sev- 
eral ports, but so poor that all of them, with their shallow 
water and narrow limits, are a miserable substitute for a good 
one. What is the result 1 The universal sea is whitened with 
the sails of Manhattan, while the voyages of New Jersey are 
restricted to a visit to the neighboring emporium, or to the 
Hudson, that washes her shores. So with human talent. One, 
well cultivated, deepened, and enlarged, is worth a hundred 
shallow faculties. The first law of success at this day, when 
so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration. — 
to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that 
point, looking neither to the right nor to the left. It has been 
justly said that a great deal of the wisdom of a man in this 
century is shown in leaving things unknown, and a great deal 
of his practical sense in leaving tilings undone. The day of 
universal scholars is past. Life is short, and art is long. The 



66 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

range of human knowledge has increased so enormously, that 
no brain can grapple with it ; and the man who would know 
one thing well must have the courage to be ignorant of a 
thousand other things, however attractive or inviting. As 
with knowledge, so with work. The man who would get 
along must single out his specialty, and into that must pour 
the whole stream of his activity, — all the energies of his hand, 
eye, tongue, heart, and brain. Broad culture, many-sidedness, 
are beautiful things to contemplate ; but it is the narrow- 
edged men, — the men of single and intense purpose, who steel 
their souls against all things else — that accomplish the hard 
work of the world, and who are everywhere in demand when 
hard work is to be done. 

Every beginner in life, therefore, should try early to ascer- 
tain the strong faculty of his mind or body, fitting him for 
some special pursuit, and direct his utmost energies to bring it 
to perfection. A man, says Emerson, is like a bit of Labrador 
spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand, 
until you come to a particular angle ; then it shows deep 
and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal 
applicability in man ; but each has his special talent ; and 
the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping 
themselves where and when that turn shall need oftenest to be 
practised. The successful man in every calling, whether liter- 
ary, scientific, or business, is he who is totus in illo, — who can 
say with Paul, " This one thing I do." With the exception 
of a few great creative minds, the men whose names are his- 
toric are identified with some one achievement, upon which all 
their life-force is spent. You think of Watt, and instantly 
the steam-engine is suggested ; of Arkwright, and the spinning- 
jenny whirls before you ; of Davy, and the safety-lamp lights 
up the mine ; of Harvey, and the blood courses the more 
quickly in your veins ; of Jenner, and you see disease stayed 
in its progress by the pricking of a lancet ; of Morse, and the 
electric spark is seen darting from continent to continent, ready, 
like Puck, to " put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes." 




CHARLES DICKENS. 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM-. 67 

" Whatever I have tried to do in my life," said Charles Dick- 
ens, " I have tried with all my heart to do well. What I have 
devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely. 
Never to put one hand to anything on which I would throw 
my whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my work, 
whatever it was, I find now to have been golden rules." 

A man may have the most dazzling talents, but if they are 
scattered upon many objects, he will accomplish nothing. Sir 
Joshua Eeynolds used to say that a painter should sew up his 
mouth ; that is, he must not shine as a talker, if he would 
excel in his art. Strength is like gunpowder, — to be effective, 
it needs concentration and aim. The marksman who aims at 
the whole target will seldom hit the centre. The literary man 
or philosopher may revel among the sweetest and most beau- 
tiful flowers of thought, but unless he gathers and condenses 
the sweets in the honeycomb of some great thought or work, 
his finest conceptions will be lost or useless. When Michael 
Angelo was asked why he did not marry, he replied, " Painting 
is my wife, and my works are my children." " Mr. A. often 
laughs at me," said a learned American chemist, " because I 
have but one idea. He talks about everything, — aims to excel 
in many things ; but I have learned that if I wish ever to 
make a breach, I must play my guns continually upon one 
point." His gunnery was successful. Beginning life as an 
obscure schoolmaster, and poring over Silliman's Journal by the 
light of a pine-knot in a log-cabin, he was erelong performing 
experiments in electro-magnetism to English earls, and has 
since been at the head of one of the chief scientific institutions 
of his country. 

It was the opinion of William Hazlitt that life is long 
enough for many pursuits, provided we set about them prop- 
erly, and give our minds wholly to them. Let one devote him- 
self to any art or science ever so strenuously, he said, and he 
will still have leisure to make considerable progress in half a 
dozen acquisitions. "Let a man do all he can in any one 
branch of study, he must either exhaust himself and doze over 



68 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

it, or vary his pursuit, or else lie idle. All our real labor lies 
in a nutshell. The mind makes, at some period or other, one 
Herculean effort, and the rest is mechanical." All this is true 
enough of a few prodigies of genius that have appeared at rare 
intervals in the ages. Cicero was master of logic, ethics, astron- 
omy, and natural philosophy, besides being well versed in geome- 
try, music, and all the other fine arts. Bacon took all knowledge 
for his province. Dante, skilled in all the learning of his times, 
sustained arguments at the University of Paris against fourteen 
disputants, and conquered in all. Scipio Africanus was not only 
a great warrior, but famed for his learning and eloquence. Salva- 
tor Eosa was a lutenist and a satirist. The variety of knowledge 
and accomplishment accumulated by Leonardo da Vinci almost 
staggers belief. It has been said that if he had stood before 
the gates of Macedon, he would have tamed Bucephalus ; if 
he had been seated on the magic throne of Comus, he would 
have broken the wand of the demon ; if he had seen the 
chariot of the King of Phrygia, he would have unravelled the 
Gordian Knot. He was not only a great painter, but a mathe- 
matician, metaphysician, musician, poet, sculptor, engineer, 
architect, chemist, botanist, anatomist, astronomer, besides 
being skilled in mechanics and natural history. But how 
many Bacons, Dantes, Salvators, or Da Yincis have there 
been in the world's history 1 ? — nay, among the men of any 
generation, how many are even Hazlitts 1 The very rarity of 
such prodigies is what makes them prodigies. To every such 
instance of universal accomplishment may be opposed thou- 
sands of men who have failed in life by dabbling in too many 
things. Most men run uncertainly if they have two goals. 
Hobbes made himself a laughing-stock as a poet ; Milton wrote 
but little good prose, and provokes a smile at himself as a 
humorist ; Bentley's hand forgot its cunning when he laid it 
on Paradise Lost ; Boileau failed almost utterly when he at- 
tempted to sweep the strings of the lyre, as did Corneille in 
comedy and Dryden in tragedy. "Art, not less eloquently 
than literature," says "Willmott, " teaches her children to vener* 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 69 

ate the single eye. Kemember Matsys. His representations of 
miser-life are breathing. A forfeited bond twinkles in the 
hard smile. But follow him to an altar-piece. His Apostle 
has caught a stray tint from his usurer." 

Sydney Smith, in an excellent lecture on the conduct of the 
understanding, justly censures what he calls the foppery of 
universality, — of knowing all sciences and excelling in all 
arts, — chemistry, mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, rea- 
soning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High Dutch, natural 
philosophy, and enough Spanish to talk about Lope de Yega. 
The modern precept of education, he says, is, very often, Be 
ignorant of nothing. " Now my advice, on the contrary, is 
to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, 
in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything. 
I would exact of a young man a pledge that he would never 
read Lope de Yega ; he should pawn to me his honor to abstain 
from Bettinelli and his thirty-five original sonneteers ; and I 
would exact from him the most rigid securities that I was never 
to hear anything about that race of penny poets who lived in 
the reigns of Cosmo and Lorenzo di Medici." 

The world has few Admirable Crichtons, — few universal 
geniuses, who are capable of mastering a dozen languages, arts, 
or sciences, or driving a dozen callings abreast. Beginners in 
life are perpetually complaining of the disadvantages under 
which they labor ; but it is an indisputable fact that more 
persons fail from a multiplicity of pursuits and pretensions 
than from an absolute poverty of resources. Don Quixote 
thought that he could have made beautiful bird-cages and 
toothpicks, if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chiv- 
alry ; and many other persons would achieve an easy success in 
their callings, if they were not distracted by rival ambitions. 
" The one prudence in life," says a shrewd American essayist, 
" is concentration, the one evil is dissipation ; and it makes no 
difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine, — property 
and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, 
or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one play- 



70 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

thing and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke 
of faithful work." The same essayist felicitously compares the 
culture of a healthy, vigorous mind to that of a tree. The 
gardener does not suffer the sap to be diverted into a thousand 
channels, merely to develop a myriad of profitless twigs ; he 
prunes the offshoots, and leaves the vital juices to be absorbed 
by a few vigorous, fruit-bearing branches. Eacine, we are told, 
might have rivalled Moliere in comedy ; but he gave up the 
cultivation of his comic talents to devote himself to the tragic 
muse. If, as the French assert, he thereby attained to the per- 
fection of comic writing, was not that better than writing come- 
dies as well as Moliere, and tragedies as well as Crebillon 1 

It is said that a Yankee can splice a rope in many different 
ways ; an English sailor knows but one mode, but that mode 
is the best. The one thing which an Englishman detests with 
his whole soul is a Jack-of-all-trades, the miscellaneous man 
who knows a little of everything. England is not a country 
for average men ; every profession is overstocked, and the only 
chance of success is for the man of signal ability and address 
to climb to a lofty position over the heads of a hundred others. 
America, on the other hand, is full of persons who can do 
many things, but who do no one thing well. The secret of 
their failure is mental dissipation, — the squandering of the 
energies upon a distracting variety of objects, instead of con- 
densing them upon one. To do anything perfectly, there 
should be an exclusiveness, a bigotry, a blindness of attachment 
to that one object, which shall make all others for the time 
being seem worthless. Just as the general who scatters his 
soldiers all about the country insures defeat, so does he whose 
attention is forever diffused through so innumerable channels 
that it can never gather in force on any one point. The human 
mind, in short, resembles a burning-glass, whose rays are in- 
tense only as they are concentrated. As the glass burns only 
when its light is conveyed to the focal point, so the former 
illumines the world of science, literature, or business, only 
when it is directed to a solitary object. Or, to take another 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 71 

illustration, what is more powerless than the scattered clouds 
of steam, as they rise in the sky ? They are as impotent as the 
dew-drops that fall nightly upon the earth. But, concentrated 
and condensed in a steam-boiler, they are able to cut through 
solid rock, to hurl mountains into the sea, and to bring the 
antipodes to our doors. 

" Be a whole man at everything," was the advice of a cele- 
brated Englishman to his son at school. It is just the lack of 
this wholeness which distinguishes the shabby, half-hearted, and 
blundering — the men who make the mob of life — from those 
who win victories. In slower times success might have been 
won by the man who gave but a corner of his brain to the 
work in hand ; but in these days of keen competition it de- 
mands the intensest application of the entire thinking faculty. 
Exclusive dealing, hateful as it is in politics, is yet, in worldly 
pursuits, a principle of hundred-headed power. The great 
linguist of Bologna mastered a hundred languages by attacking 
them singly, as the Hon did the bulls. On the other hand, by 
dividing his time among too many objects, a man of genius 
often becomes diamond-dust instead of a diamond. Many men 
walk as much idly in Broadway or Pall Mall as in a few years 
could carry them around the globe. Many a person misses of 
being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. Enough 
of irregular, disconnected, and objectless effort is put forth by 
amateur artists to secure a commendable, if not an enviable 
success, were the effort only systematic and persistent. The 
scattered hours wasted in idly drawing the bow by some 
dreaming violinist would make, if properly employed, not, 
indeed, a Vieiixtemps or a Paganini, but a brilliant performer. 
The time spent by many persons in profitless desultory reading, 
if concentrated upon a single line of study, would make them 
masters of an entire literature or science. The toil expended by 
the newspaper hack in writing disconnected essays, dissertations, 
and sketches, to buy his daily bread, would produce — if 
directed with energy for a year to one absorbing object — a 
volume, instead of the two-and-flfty or more crude and ephem- 



72 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

eral articles which are once read and then forever forgotten. 
The highest ability will accomplish but little, if scattered on a 
multiplicity of objects ; while, on the other hand, if one has 
but a thimbleful of brains, and concentrates them all upon the 
thing he has in hand, he may achieve miracles. Momentum 
in physics, properly directed, will drive a tallow candle through 
an inch board. Just so will oneness of aim and the direction 
of the energies to a single pursuit, while all others are waived 
as harlotry, enable the veriest weakling to make his mark 
where he strikes. 

We are aware that it is fashionable in these days, with small 
wits, to ridicule men of one idea. But no man has ever yet 
made his mark on the world who was not possessed by some 
master passion. Now and then we meet with a Eearne, who 
writes an " Essay on Contingent Remainders," and is at the 
same time profoundly versed in medicine, chemistry, and math- 
ematics, obtains a patent for dyeing scarlet, and produces an 
acute treatise on the Greek accent ; with a Mill, who besides 
being an able writer on metaphysics and politics, is a fine pian- 
ist, an able archaeologist, philologist, and botanist ; or, again, 
with a Gladstone, who works double tides and excels in both, 
— who, though Chancellor of the Exchequer, receives de- 
spatches, makes experiments with Sykes's hydrometer, answers 
the letters of financial amateurs, conducts a well-sustained cor- 
respondence with half a dozen Greek scholiasts on Homer, 
translates some scores of English hymns into Latin verse, and 
writes occasional letters of forty pages to a lawyer on some nice 
legal point. But the Loyolas and the Luthers, the Cavours 
and Bismarcks, of every age, have been men of " one idea," 
which, though their capacious souls have contained many ideas, 
have subordinated and directed all the rest. An acute ob- 
server, who knew intimately the celebrated Canning, said of 
him that he possessed too many talents ; for, betrayed by his 
rare powers of declamation and sarcasm, he often produced 
more admiration than conviction, and seldom delivered an im- 
portant speech without making an enemy for life. Pitt said of 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 73 

the same brilliant orator and statesman, that he might have 
achieved anything had he but gone straight to the mark. What 
a contrast between his dazzling but fitful and half-successful 
career and that of William Pitt ! If there was anything divine 
in this man, whom his contemporaries called a Heaven-born 
statesman, it was the marvellous gift of concentrating his 
powers. Whatever he did, he did with all his might. Ever 
master of himself, he converged all the rays of his mind, as 
into a focus, upon the object in hand, worked like a horse, 
and did nothing by halves. Hence with him there was no 
half vision, no sleepy eyes, no dawning sense. All his life he 
had his wits about him so intensely directed to the point re- 
quired, that, it is said, he seemed never to learn, but only to 
recollect. He gave men an answer before they knew there was 
a riddle ; he had formed a decision before they had heard of 
a difficulty. His lightning had struck, and done its work, 
before they had heard the thunder-clap which announced it. 

Is it strange that such a man went straightway from college 
into the House of Commons, and in two years to the Prime 
Ministership of Great Britain, — reigned, for nearly a quarter 
of a century, virtual king, — and carried his measures in spite 
of the opposition of some of the greatest men England ever 
produced'? The simple secret of his success was, that his 
whole soul was swallowed up in the one passion for political 
power. So we see him " neglecting everything else, — careless 
of friends ; careless of expenditures, so that with an income of 
fifty thousand dollars yearly, and no family, he died hopelessly 
in debt ; tearing up by the roots from his heart a love most 
deep and tender, because it ran counter to his ambition ; total- 
ly indifferent to posthumous fame, so that he did not take the 
pains to transmit to posterity a single one of his speeches; 
utterly insensible to the claims of art, literature, and belles-let- 
tres ; living and working terribly for the one sole purpose of 
wielding the governing power of the nation." Again, we all 
know of the success of Rufus Choate as a lawyer. To what 
did he owe it but to a similar quality, — his marvellous powers 
4 



74 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

of concentration, — that entire absorption and identification 
with the interests of his client which led him to burn and 
freeze with him; which led him, it has been said, to be as 
pathetic as the grand lamentations in " Samson Agonistes " 
over the obstructions of fishways, and to rise into the cathedral 
music of the universe on the right to manufacture india-rubber 
suspenders 1 His biographer tells us that every important cause 
took such possession of him that sound sleep was an impos- 
sibility. His mind, as he himself said, became a stream 
that took up the cause, like a ship, and bore it on, night and 
day, till the verdict or judgment was reached; and days 
elapsed before he could enter upon a new case with the full 
force of his faculties. 

Another argument for concentration is, that it is the only 
way of using strength economically, so as to avoid exhaustion. 
The man who scatters himself upon many objects soon loses 
his energy, and with his energy his enthusiasm ; and how is 
success possible without enthusiasm 1 Dr. J. W. Alexander, in 
counselling young clergymen, exhorted them above all things 
to throw their force into their sermons. "Many ministers," 
said he, " are enthusiastic about other things, such as art, poetry, 
authorship, or politics ; but their Sabbath sermon is like a 
sponge from which all the moisture is squeezed out. Live for 
your sermon, — live in your sermon. Get some starling to cry 
Sermon, sermon, sermon ! " Eufus Choate, who was so success- 
ful with juries, used to say : " Carry the jury at all hazards ; 
move heaven and earth to carry the jury, and then fight it 
out with the judges on the law questions as best as you can." 
It was thus that Macdonough, the hero of Champlain, won his 
victories. He pointed all his guns at the " big ship " of the 
enemy. No matter how hot the fire from the others ; every ball 
must be hurled at the " big ship," till her guns were silenced. 

Let it not be inferred from all this that by concentration we 
mean isolation or self-absorption. In a work of art there may 
be great variety of detail with perfect unity of conception ; and 
so in the conduct of life. There may be a hundred accessories, 



CONCENTRATION, OK ONENESS OF AIM. 75 

provided they but contribute to tbe one grand result. " Stick 
to your business, and your business will stick to you," is a 
golden rule ; but what if I accomplish my main ends more rap- 
idly and surely by leaving my office or shop occasionally, and 
dining with an influential friend? A late writer has justly urged 
that " social intercourse, of the right kind, is a material aid to 
success. Often the gain is palpable to you at once, and you 
count your advantage as you take off your dress-coat. But if 
not, it will find you out after many days ; you have sown, and 
in due season you will reap. If you do nothing more than 
assert your individuality, — make yourself a living presence 
among men, instead of a myth, a stat nominis umbra, — you may 
be sure that you have done something. Am I more or less 
likely to read your book, or to buy your picture, or to say a 
good word for you, if I have a chance, to some man in author- 
ity, for sitting next to you at our friend Kobinson's, and think- 
ing you a pleasant fellow % " 

Again, in urging the importance of sticking to one thing, we 
do not mean that any man should be a mere lawyer, a mere 
doctor, or a mere merchant or mechanic, and nothing more. 
We would commend to no man the example of Saint Bernard, 
who was so great a saint that he could keep no flesh on his 
bones, and knew not the difference between a cake composed 
of ashes and one composed of meal. A Daniel Lambert, with 
his elephantine proportions, is hardly more a monstrosity than 
the intellectually obese Neander, who so far neglects the prac- 
tical part of his nature that he cannot find the way from his 
own house to the university where he has lectured for nearly a 
third of a century. Napoleon thought war the sum of all the 
arts ; a great musician thought the chief value of the Seven 
Years' War lay in the opportunity it gave for improving wind 
instruments ; Parson Adams thought a schoolmaster the 
greatest character in the world; Yestris, the French dancing- 
master, believed himself and Voltaire to be the two greatest 
men in all Europe ; and Dr. George, we are told, shrewdly sus- 
pected that Frederick the Great, with all his victories, could not 



76 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

conjugate a Greek verb in mi. It was said of Baron Maseres, 
with whom the study of abstract arithmetic was a passion, that 
"his leading idea seemed to have been to calculate more decimal 
places than any one would want, and to print the works of all 
who had done the same thing." Douglas Jerrold once knew a 
man with twenty-four languages, and not an idea in any of 
them; and it is said that the dying regret of a great German 
philologist was, that he had not concentrated his life-labors on 
the dative case. Jean Paul says of the Germans that they 
determine the course of a zephyr by a sea-compass, and the 
heart of a girl by conic sections. To a Lowell cotton manu- 
facturer " the blood of all the Howards " is, doubtless, but so 
much crimson fluid, that would make, perhaps, good red ink ; 
and if you were to show him the mummy of Potiphar's wife, 
he would declare, oracularly, that the wrapper was flax, not 
cotton. But these are cases of one-ideaism pushed too far. 
There is no more pitiable wretch than the man in whom one 
giant faculty has starved the rest, like the dwarf whose large 
feet and hands seem to have devoured his stature. And yet 
does not the world abound in such dwarfed specimens of hu- 
manity ? Has not every profession its peculiar tendencies, that 
more or less cripple, mutilate, or warp those that devote them- 
selves to it too exclusively, paralyzing this or that mental 
or moral faculty, and preventing them from attaining to a 
complete, healthful, and whole-souled manhood? Is not the 
weaver, in many cases, but an animated shuttle ? — the seam- 
stress a living needle? — the laborer a spade that eats and 
sleeps ? Does not the clergyman too often get a white-neck- 
cloth ideal of the world, with some twists of dyspepsia in it ? — 
and do not his shyness, stifihess, and lack of practicality, 
give too much occasion for the jest that the human race is 
divided into three classes, — men, women, and ministers ? 
Does not the lawyer often become a mere bundle of precedents, 
a walking digest of real-estate rules and decisions in law or 
chancery? Are not scholars too often Dominie Sampsons, 
— mere bloated encyclopaedias of learning? Is not the time 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 77 

rapidly drawing near when, to find a perfect man, we must 
take a brain from one, a heart from another, senses from a 
third, and a stomach from a fourth 1 

Surely, man dwarfs himself, if he pushes too far the doctrine 
of the subdivision of labor. Success is purchased too dear, if, 
to attain it, one has to become a monster of one-sided develop- 
ment, and transformed into a head, an arm, a finger, or a leg, 
instead of a man. Every person ought to be something more 
than a factor in some grand formula of social or economical 
science, — a cog or pulley in some great machine. Let every one 
take care, first of all, to be a man, cultivating and developing, 
so far as he can, all his powers on a symmetrical plan, and 
then let him expend his chief labors on the one faculty which 
Nature, by making it prominent, has given a hint should be 
specially cultivated. There is, indeed, no profession upon 
which a high degree of knowledge will not continually bear. 
Things which at first view seem most remote from it, will often 
be brought into close approximation to it ; and acquisitions 
which the narrow-minded might deem a hindrance, will sooner 
or later yield something serviceable. Nothing is more beauti- 
ful than to see a man hold his art, trade, or function in an easy, 
disengaged way, — wearing it as a soldier his sword, which, 
once laid aside, the accomplished soldier gives you no hint 
that he has ever worn. How it exalts our estimate of the 
genius of Charles James Fox to learn, as Walpole tells us, that 
after his long and exhausting speech on Hastings's trial, he 
was seen handing the ladies into the coaches with all the 
gayety and prattle of an idle gallant ! Too often the shop- 
keeper smells of the shop, and the scholar, who should remind 
you, unconsciously, that he has been on Parnassus, only by the 
odors of the flowers that he has crushed, which cling to his 
feet, affronts you with a huge nosegay stuck in his bosom. 

It is recorded of Braham, the celebrated vocalist, that his 
voice was equally effective in treble, tenor, or bass, but that 
his individuality was ever distinguishable throughout. So 
should it be in the conduct of life. The man who would get 



78 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

on need not always pursue the " grand trunk " line ; he may 
"switch off" upon other tracks, provided they lead ulti- 
mately to the same terminus. With one object ever in view, 
he may have many varying activities, conducing to the same 
result. Singleness of aim by no means necessitates monotony 
of action ; but if we would be felt on this stirring planet, if 
we would strike the world with lasting force, we must be 
men of one thing. Having found out the thing we have to 
do, we must throw into it all the energies of our being, seek- 
ing its accomplishment at whatever hazard or sacrifice. What 
did Edward Everett accomplish in proportion to his rare gifts 1 
What great work did he leave, — what monument of his fine 
powers 1 What could be expected of a man who dispersed 
himself nearly over the whole field of knowledge and elegant 
accomplishment 1 Or what impress would Crichton have made 
upon his age, if, instead of dying in a street brawl, a prodigy 
of acquisition at twenty-two, he had continued to scatter his 
energies to the age of seventy? It is not such men that 
confer the highest blessings on mankind, and send their names 
ringing down the ages. No ; it is Bishop Butler, giving twenty 
years to his " Analogy," and Edward Gibbon twenty years to 
the " Decline and Eall " ; it is Kant working half a century in 
the quicksilver mines of metaphysics ; it is Isaac Newton, 
rewriting his " Chronology " seventeen times, and Adam Smith 
toning ten years over " The Wealth of Nations," — who do 
the work which the world honors. One of the most striking 
illustrations of this concentration of mind was Chief Justice 
Marshall. Read what Wirt says of him, and you cease to 
wonder at the success with which he grappled with the tough- 
est problems of the law. " Here is John Marshall," he writes 
in one of his letters, " whose mind seems to be little else than 
a mountain of barren and stupendous rocks, — an inexhaustible 
quarry from which he draws his materials and builds his fabrics, 
rude and Gothic, but of such strength that neither time nor 
force can beat them down ; a fellow who would not turn off a 
single step from the right line of his argument, though a par- 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 79 

adise should rise to tempt him." And so with the giants of 
theology and medicine, — it is because they have rigorously 
limited themselves to a single subject of thought, instead of 
careering over the whole encyclopaedia, that they have made 
epochs. 

The poet Praed, describing a certain vicar, says : — 

" His talk is like a stream which runs 

With rapid change from rocks to roses ; 
It slips from politics to puns, 

It glides from Mahomet to Moses : 
Beginning with the laws that keep 

The planets in their radiant courses, 
And ending with some precept deep 

For skinning eels or shoeing horses." 

But persons who thus know a little of everything generally 
do not know much of anything. Even of Lord Brougham, 
who, of those aspiring intellects that, like Bacon, take all 
knowledge to be their province, is the least obnoxious to the 
charge of being " superficially omniscient," it has been sarcas- 
tically observed that " science was his forte, omniscience his 
foible," and that, if His Lordship had only known a little of 
law, he would have known a little of everything. 

Dr. Adam Clarke used to say : " The old adage about 'too 
many irons in the fire ' conveys an abominable lie. Keep them 
all agoing, — poker, tongs, and all ! " But all are not Clarkes ; 
and experience shows that, generally, those who try to heat 
half a dozen irons at once, either burn their fingers or find the 
irons cooling faster than they can use them. Distraction of 
pursuit is the rock on which most unsuccessful persons split 
in early life. Nine men out of ten lay out their plans on too 
vast a scale ; and they who are competent to do almost any- 
thing do nothing, because they never make up their minds 
distinctly as to what they want, or what they intend to be. 
Hence, the mournful failures we see all around us in every walk 
of life. Behold a De Quincey, with all his wondrous and weird- 
like powers, — his enormous learning and wealth of thought, — 
producing nothing worthy of his rare gifts ! See a Coleridge, 



80 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

a man of Shakespearian mould, possessing a creative power of 
Titanic grasp, and yet, for want of concentration, fathoming 
among all his vagrancies no foundation, filling no chasms, and 
of all his dazzling and colossal literary schemes not completing 
one ! The heir of eternity, scorning to be the slave of time ! 
Feeling that he has all the ages to work in, he squanders the 
precious present ; so he lets his dreams go by ungrasped, his 
magnificent promises unrealized ; and his life may be summed 
up in the words of Charles Lamb, who writes to a friend : 
" Coleridge is dead, and is said to have left behind him above 
forty thousand treatises on metaphysics and divinity, — not 
one of them complete ! " 

There is probably no more frequent cause of failure in life 
than that greediness which leads men to grasp at too many of 
its prizes. There are some the acquisition of which is incom- 
patible with the acquisition of others, and the sooner this truth 
is realized and acted upon the better the chance of success and 
happiness. Much material good must be resigned if we would 
attain to the highest degree of moral excellence, and many 
spiritual joys must be foregone if we resolve at all risks to win 
great material advantages. To strive for a high professional 
position, and yet expect to have all the delights of leisure; 
to labor for vast riches, and yet to ask for freedom from anxiety 
and care, and all the happiness which flows from a contented 
mind ; to indulge in sensual gratification, and yet demand 
health, strength, and vigor; to live for self, and yet to look 
for the joys that spring from a virtuous and self-denying life, — 
is to ask for impossibilities. The world is a market, where 
everything is marked at a settled price ; and whatever we buy 
with our time, labor, or ingenuity, — whether riches, ease, 
tranquillity, fame, integrity, or knowledge, — we must stand by 
our decision, and not, like children, when we have purchased 
one thing repine that we do not possess another which we did 
not buy. The unreasonableness of many persons in this matter 
is well illustrated by a passage in one of Lucian's Dialogues, — 
cited by Mrs. Barbauld in one of her essays, — where Jupiter 



CONCENTRATION, OR ONENESS OF AIM. 81 

complains to Cupid that, though he has had so many intrigues, 
he was never sincerely beloved. In order to be loved, says 
Cupid, you must lay aside your aegis and your thunderbolts, 
and you must curl and perfume your hair, and place a garland 
on your head, and walk with a soft step, and assume a winning, 
obsequious deportment. But, replied Jupiter, I am not willing 
to resign so much of my dignity. Then, returns Cupid, leave 
off desiring to be loved. He wanted to be Jupiter and Adonis 
at the same time. 

In law, in medicine, in trade, in the mechanical professions, 
the most successful men have been those who have stuck to one 
thing. The advice of Dr. Hugh Blair, on a certain occasion to 
Boswell, the biographer, contains a lesson for all. Boswell, in 
his youth, imitated, in the pit of the Drury Lane Theatre, the 
lowing of a cow so well that there was a general cry in the 
gallery, " Encore the cow ! " As he attempted, with very in- 
ferior effect, to vary the performance, Blair, who sat next him, 
whispered in his ear, " Stick to the cow, mon ! " There are few 
actors in life that would not do better to " stick to the cow " 
than to attempt the part of harlequin. Who is the favorite 
actor at the theatre 1 Not he who personates scores of charac- 
ters, but the Kean, the Booth, the Jefferson, the "Warren, who 
always discovers the same peculiarities, and secures the ap- 
plause of the audience by never going out of his individuality. 
When Bully Bottom, the weaver, undertook to do all the parts 
in the most lamentable comedy of " Pyramus and Thisbe," he 
no doubt set himself down for a universal genius. Not only 
would he play Pyramus and Thisbe, but he put in for the Lion 
and the Wall, the Prologue and the Epilogue ; and had there 
been an orchestra, he would unquestionably have insisted on 
being the first violin. There are thousands of men in society 
who exhibit just so absurd and monopolizing an ambition. As 
Sydney Smith said of Lord John Russell, they are ready to 
attempt at a moment's notice the most incongruous things, — to 
go up in a balloon, to perform an operation for cataract, or to take 
command of the Channel fleet. So Pope says of Wharton : — ■ 
4* F 



82 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

" Though wondering Senates hung on all he spoke, 
The club must hail him master of the joke : 
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new ? 
He '11 shine a Tally, and a Willmot too." 

But in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the old adage 
proves true of such, that a Jack-at-all-trades is good at none. 
A circus-rider may ride five or six horses at a time, and not 
break his neck ; but a man who drives five or six trades or 
speculations abreast generally tumbles to the ground. Knives 
that contain a half-dozen blades, two or three corkscrews, a file, 
a small saw, a toothpick, and a pair of tweezers, are wretchedly 
adapted to any of these purposes, and are soon thrown away in 
disgust. " Stick to your business," said Rothschild to a begin- 
ner, — "stick to your brewery, and you may be the great 
brewer of London. Be a brewer and a baker and a merchant 
and a manufacturer, and you will soon be in the Gazette." 



SELF-RELIANCE. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



SELF-RELIANCE. 



What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power, 

Are bawbles nothing worth ; they only serve 

To rouse us up, as children at the school 

Are roused up to exertion ; our reward 

Is in the race we run, not in the prize. 

Those few, to whom is given what they ne'er earned, 

Having by favor or inheritance 

The dangerous gifts placed in their hands, 

Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride 

That glows in him who on himself relies, 

Entering the lists of life. He speeds beyond 

Them all, and foremost in the race succeeds. 

His joy is not that he has got his crown, 

But that the power to win the crown is his. — Rogers. 
" Le sentiment de nos forces les augmente." 
Every person has two educations, — one which he receives from others, and 
one, more important, which he gives himself. — Gibbon. 

I remember when Mr. Locke (of Norbury Park) first came over from Italy, 
and old Dr. Moore, who had a high opinion of him, was crying up his draw- 
ings, and asked me if I did not think he would make a great painter ? I said, 
" No, never !" "Why not?" "Because he has six thousand a year." — 

NORTHCOTE. 

" Our motive power is always found in what we lack." 

0~F all the elements of success none is more vital than self- 
reliance, — a determination to be one's own helper, and not 
to look to others for support. It is the secret of all individual 
growth and vigor, the master-key that unlocks all difficulties 
in every profession or calling. Aide tot, et le del faidera, as 
the French have it, — help yourself, and Heaven will help you, 
— should he the motto of every man who would make himself 
useful in the world or carve his way to riches or honor. The 
direst curse that can befall a young man is to be the recipient 



84 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

of charity ; to lean, while his character is forming, on others 
for support. He who begins with crutches will generally end 
with crutches. Help from within always strengthens, but help 
from without invariably enfeebles, its recipient. It is not in 
the sheltered garden or the hot-house, but on the rugged Alpine 
cliffs, where the storms beat most violently, that the toughest 
plants are reared. It is not by the use of corks, bladders, and 
life-preservers that you can best learn to swim, but by plunging 
courageously into the wave and buffeting it, like Cassius and 
Caesar, " with lusty sinews." 

The man who dares not follow his own independent judgment, 
but runs perpetually to others for advice, becomes at last a 
moral weakling and an intellectual dwarf. Such a man has no 
self within him, and believes in no self within him, but goes 
as a suppliant to others, and entreats of them, one after another, 
to lend him theirs. He is, in fact, a mere element of a human 
being, and is borne about the world an insignificant cipher, 
unless he desperately fastens, by accidental cohesion, to some 
other floating and supplementary elements, with which he may 
form a species of corporation resembling a man. 

It is said that a lobster, when left high and dry among the 
rocks, has not instinct and energy enough to work his way 
back to the sea, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it 
does not come, he remains where he is and dies, although the 
slightest effort would enable him to reach the waves, which 
are perhaps tossing and tumbling within a yard of him. The 
world is full of human lobsters, — men stranded on the rocks 
of business, who, instead of putting forth their own energies, 
are waiting for some grand billow of good fortune to set them 
afloat. There are many young men of vivid imaginations, 
who, instead of carrying their own burdens, are always dream- 
ing of some Hercules coming to give them " a lift." The vision 
haunts their minds of some benevolent old gentleman, — a 
bachelor, with no children, of course, but with a bag full of 
money, and a trunk full of mortgages and stocks, who, being 
astonishingly quick to detect merit or genius, will give them 



SELF-RELIANCE. 80 

a trifle of ten or twenty thousand dollars, with which they 
will earn a hundred thousand more. Or, perhaps they will 
have a legacy from some unheard-of relative, who will become 
conveniently defunct. " I 'd rather be a kitten, and cry mew," 
than one of these charity-mongers. With another, we can say, 
that to us " one of the most disgusting sights in this world is 
that of a young man with healthy blood, broad shoulders, 
presentable calves, and a hundred and fifty pounds, more or 
less, of good bone and muscle, standing with his hands in his 
pockets, longing for help." In ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 
dred, pecuniary help to a beginner is the Devil's blessing, — to 
be deprecated, not coveted. It is the Upas-tree, that paralyzes 
and reduces to the last gasp the moral integrity of every man 
who inhales its poisonous atmosphere. Under the appearance 
of aiding, it weakens its victims, and keeps them in perpetual 
slavery and degradation. Cold, consequential, and patronizing, 
it freezes the recipient into humiliation, and there leaves him, 
as firmly wedged as Sir John Franklin amid the thick-ribbed 
ice of the Arctic Ocean. Money bestowed in this way, in a 
majority of cases, is more truly wasted than if thrown into the 
sea. 

God never intended that strong, independent beings should 
be reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to the oak, for 
support. The difficulties, hardships, and trials of life — the 
obstacles one encounters on the road to fortune — are positive 
blessings. They knit his muscles more firmly, and teach him 
self-reliance, just as by wrestling with an athlete who is supe- 
rior to us, we increase our own strength and learn the secret of 
his skill. All difficulties come to us, as Bunyan says of temp- 
tation, like the lion which met Samson ; the first time we 
encounter them they roar and gnash their teeth, but, once sub- 
dued, we find a nest of honey in them. Peril is the very 
element in which power is developed. " Ability and necessity 
dwell near each other," said Pythagoras. "He who has battled," 
says Carlyle, " were it only with poverty and hard toil, will be 
found stronger and more expert than he who could stay at 



86 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

home from the battle, concealed among the provision-wagons, 
or even rest unwatchfully ' abiding by the stuff.'" Burke, 
repelling the Duke of Bedford's attack upon his pension, says 
of himself : " I was not rocked and swaddled and dandled into 
a legislator. Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like 
me." Great statesmen in all countries have owed their saga- 
city, tact, and foresight more to their failures than to their 
successes. The diplomatist becomes master of his art by being 
baffled, thwarted, defeated, quite as much as by winning his 
points. Every time he is checkmated he acquires a profounder 
knowledge of the political game, and makes his next combina- 
tions with increased skill and increased chances of success. 

It is told of Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor of England, that, 
on being consulted by a parent as to the best means his son 
could adopt to secure success at the bar, he thus replied : " Let 
your son spend his own fortune, marry and spend his wife's, 
and then go to the bar ; there will be little fear of his failure." 
Why this recommendation 1 Plainly, because Thurlow's ob- 
servation had taught him that the man who has a sure means 
of support has not the inducement to put his shoulder to the 
wheel which stimulates and urges him who feels the pressure 
of the res augustae domi. Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit. 
It was for this reason that Thurlow withheld from Lord Eldon, 
when poor, a commissionership of bankruptcy which he had 
promised him, saying it was a favor to Eldon to withhold it. 
"What he meant," says Eldon, '"was, that he had learnt (a 
clear truth) that I was by nature very indolent, and it was 
only want that could make me very industrious." Nothing, 
indeed, can be more unwise than the anxiety of parents to ac- 
cumulate property for the support of their children after iheir 
own death. Many a father toils hard and painfully economizes, 
that he may leave means enough to give his children " a start 
in the world," when, were he their worst enemy, he could 
hardly adopt a surer means of keeping them in poverty and 
obscurity. 

Eead the history of the rich and the poor in all ages and 



SELF-RELIANCE. 87 

countries, and you will find, almost invariably, that the " lucky 
dogs," as they are called, began life at the foot of the ladder, 
without a finger's lift from Hercules ; while the " unfortunates," 
who flit along life's paths more like scarecrows than human 
beings, attribute the very first declensions in their fortunes to 
having been bolstered and propped by others. It is a proverb, 
that rich young men, who begin their fortunes where their 
fathers left off, leave off where their fathers began. The only 
money which benefits a man is that which he has himself earned. 
Inherited wealth, instead of prompting to further acquisition, 
is " a title-deed to sloth." The ready-made fortune of an an- 
cestor, like his ready-made clothes, rarely fits the man to whom 
it falls. But why confine ourselves to those who have won dis- 
tinction in the marts of commerce 1 Whence come the great 
lights of the intellectual firmament, — the stars that shine with 
steady radiance through the ages 1 Have they not, in the vast 
majority of cases, emerged to eminence from the chilling depths 
of obscurity, destitution, and want 1 Who are they that 

"Pluck bright glory from the pale-faced moon, 
Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, 
And drag up drowned honor by the locks ? " 

The scions of noble blood 1 The sons of the rich, who were 
dandled in the lap of luxury, whose path was smoothed for 
them at every step, who were never for an instant compelled 
to fight against the armed resistance of misfortune, penury, and 
wrong 1 "No ! they are men of humble parentage, — men whose 
cradles were rocked in lowly cottages, and who have buffeted 
the billows of fate without dependence, save upon the mercy 
of God and their own energies, — the gentlemen of nature, who 
have trodden under foot the " painted lizards" of society, and 
worked out their own distinction with an ardor that could not 
be quenched, and a perseverance that considered nothing as 
done while anything yet remained to be done. 

There are many persons who are always looking to govern- 
ment, to reform societies, to improved educational institutions, 



88 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

to workingmen's or other associations, to anything and every- 
thing but their own hands and brains, to better their con- 
dition and make their life-journey easy. But even the best 
institutions can give a man no active help. Laws, wisely ad- 
ministered, will secure to men the fruits of their industry ; but 
no laws which the wit of man can devise can make the idle 
industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. 
Nine tenths of the great social evils which our reformers de- 
nounce are but the outgrowth of individual life, and no legisla- 
tion can extirpate them, unless the axe is also laid at their root. 
It is said that when Fuseli presided at the Academy of Art in 
London, he read while his pupils drew, and rarely opened his 
lips. " I believe he was right," says his great pupil, Leslie ; 
" for those students who are born with powers that will make 
them eminent, it is sufficient to place works before them. 
They do not want instruction, and those that do are not worth 
it. Art may be learned, but cannot be taught." What Leslie 
affirmed of painting is true of every pursuit under the sun. 
The world, though rough, is, after all, the best schoolmaster, — 
better than books, better than study, — for it makes a man his 
own teacher, and gives him that practical training which no 
schools, academies, or colleges can ever impart. The great art 
of education, it has been wisely said, is "to teach others to 
teach themselves." Nor is there any contradiction to this 
aphorism in the saying so often quoted, that " a self-taught man 
had a very ignorant fellow for his master " ; for, by " self- 
taught," is here meant one who, ignorant of all that others have 
accomplished, makes no use of others' labors in any depart- 
ment of art, science, or learning, and is therefore limited to the 
results of his own discoveries. It has been well said that, " in 
mind as well as body, we are children first, only that we may 
afterwards become men ; dependent upon others, in order that 
we may learn from them such lessons as may tend eventually to 
our edification on an independent basis of our own .... The in- 
struction of others, compared with self-instruction, is like the 
law compared with faith, — a discipline of preparation, beggarly 



SELF-RELIANCE. 89 

elements, a schoolmaster to lead us on to a state of greater 
worthiness, and there give up the charge of us." 

It cannot be too often repeated that it is not helps, but obsta- 
cles, not facilities, but difficulties, that make men. Beet- 
hoven said of Eossini, that he had the stuff in him to have 
made a good musician, if he had only been well flogged when 
a boy ; but he was spoiled by the ease with winch he composed. 
Shelley tells us of certain poets that they 

" Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song " ; 

and it would seem that, as flowers need to be crushed before 
they will give forth all their perfumes, and as the goldfinch is 
said to sing the most sweetly when a hot needle is thrust into 
its eye, so pain and anguish are the conditions of some men's 
success, without which it is impossible to evoke the most 
brilliant displays of their genius. It was a shrewd remark, 
therefore, which a great musician once made concerning a promis- 
ing but passionless cantatrice : " She sings well, but she wants 
something, and in that something, everything. If I were single, 
I would court her ; I would marry her ; I would maltreat her ; 
I would break her heart ; and in six months she would be the 
greatest singer in Europe." It may be doubted whether the 
thousand helps which men have in this age of steam, electri- 
city, and cheap printing, are not almost as great a disadvantage 
as blessing. A great statesman once said that the world is gov- 
erned too much. In our day it is rather doctored too much, — 
takes too many powders, and is treated too much as an invalid. 
Society is everywhere overslaughed with institutions. Instead 
of being robust and healthy, it is getting into the condition of 
a sick man, with limbs bandaged and face poulticed, a nightcap 
on its head, and pills in its stomach, always trying some new 
quack medicine, always on the eve of being cured by some new 
matchless sanative. Like King James I., of England, who was 
rendered helpless by the weight of his ponderous armor, men 
are crushed by the very coats of mail, shields, and defences by 
which they guard themselves against their enemies. The very 



90 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

asylums, hospitals, and infirmaries, which are the glory of the 
age, unavoidably aggravate the ills they are intended to cure. 
Not only are the sense of danger and the fear of penalty — 
the great checks on transgression — lessened by the helps and 
reliefs interposed between the sinner and the natural conse- 
quences of his sins, but parents are encouraged to neglect the 
care of their children, knowing, as they do beforehand, that 
whatever may be their own thriftlessness or neglect of their 
children's education or morals, their offspring will find a safe 
retreat and abundant discipline in some Eefuge of the Home- 
less, some Orphan Asylum or Eeform School. 

The moral feebleness of the time is equalled by the intellec- 
tual. Men are gradually ceasing to think; they have their 
thinking done for them, — done by machines. " As the native 
in some parts of the world carries the traveller in a chair on 
his back over the mountains, so the teacher carries the pupil up 
the Alpine peaks of knowledge ; as the priest in Siberia puts 
his devotions into a mill, and grinds out prayers, so we expect 
our preacher to do our praying for us ; as the steam-whistle 
whisks us, asleep or awake, to the city or capital, so we expect the 
book over which we doze or snore to bear us to the metropolis 
of science." Our logarithms are ground out of a box ; our calcu- 
lations manufactured by turning a handle ; we learn chemistry 
by inhaling laughing-gas ; we float on the water with bladders 
tied under our arms, and call it swimming; and, from the 
cradle to manhood, make use of mental go-carts till we have 
lost the use of our legs. Hardly greater than this mental de- 
generacy of some classes is the physical, which has reached 
such a point that in our principal hotels elevators are employed 
to lift spider-legged dandies and languid females from the 
dinner-table to the rooms above, without the labor of climbing 
stairs. It has been suggested that the next contrivance to 
this by which the human package of dinner and ennui is borne, 
in a few seconds, to the top of the house, will be some machine 
for putting lazy folks to bed, and a crank-mill through which 
they will be run in the morning, to come out washed, cravated, 



SELF-EELIANCE. 91 

brushed, combed, ready for the breakfast-table, or rather the 
breakfast-stuffing machine, which will have taken its place. 

The London " Saturday Review," in an article on " Limp 
People," draws a vivid picture of the class we have been de- 
scribing, — men who, lacking the force to hew out a path for 
themselves, can travel only in a groove already fashioned : "A 
molluscous man," says the writer, " too suddenly ejected from 
his long-accustomed groove, where, like a toad imbedded in the 
rock, he had made his niche exactly fitting to his own shape, 
presents a wretched picture of helplessness and unshiftiness. 
In vain his friends suggest this or that independent endeavor ; 
he shakes his head, and says he can't, — it won't do ; what he 
wants is a place where he is not obliged to depend on himself, 
where he has to do a fixed amount of work for a fixed amount 
of salary, and where his fibreless plasticity may find a mould 
ready formed, into which it may run without the necessity of 
forging shapes for itself. Many a man of respectable intellec- 
tual powers has gone down to ruin, and died miserably, because 
of his limpness, which made it impossible for him to break 
new ground, or to work at anything whatsoever, with the stim- 
ulus of hope only. He must be bolstered up by certainty, 
supported by the walls of his groove, else he can do nothing ; 
and if he cannot get into his friendly groove, he lets himself 
drift into destruction. In no manner are linip people to be 
depended on, their very central quality being fluidity, which 
is a bad thing to rest on." 

It was a saying of the late Sir Thomas Powell Buxton, 
" that no man ought to be convinced by anything short of as- 
siduous and long-continued labors, issuing in absolute failure, 
that he is not meant to do much for the honor of God and 
the good of mankind." This is a noble saying, which all men, 
especially all young men, should take deeply to heart. While 
it is true that all men cannot become Raphaels or Shakespeares, 
and while it is true that the number of " mute, inglorious Mil- 
tons " and Newtons, who have Paradise Losts and Principias 
packed away in their brains, is far smaller than is generally 



92 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

supposed, — it is equally true that every individual mind may 
contain some germ, some seed, or latent principle, the develop- 
ment of which may sooner or later exert an important influence 
over the whole widespread world. Do you complain of your 
feeble abilities 1 We answer that neither power nor capacity 
is to be measured by the capacity of the recipient. What ! 
were not the oak forests of the earth once contained in a single 
acorn ? Was it not a camel-driver that founded a new religion, 
and changed the face of empires 1 Was not Pope Gregory VII. 
a carpenter's son, Sixtus V. a shepherd, and Adrian VI. a 
bargeman? Was not Copernicus the son of a baker, and 
Kepler the son of a publican 1 Was it not an obscure monk 
who split in twain the Catholic Church, and a still obscurer 
countryman of his, who, by the invention of the printing-press, 
revolutionized the whole intellectual aspect of society ? Have 
you never heard of Clarkson, a man originally of no mark or 
promise, who, by the accidental reading of a pamphlet, when 
the slave-trade was at the zenith of its popularity, was led to 
see its horrors, solemnly dedicated himself to its extinction, 
and, amid scorn and obloquy, lived to accomplish a purpose 
which, at its annunciation, was ridiculed as an enthusiast's 
dream % Have you not seen Cobden, a manufacturer with no 
brilliancy of parts, by his stubborn perseverance overthrow, in 
a few years, the long-established and deeply rooted commercial 
system of the British Empire 1 Have you never read the story 
of Arkwright, the barber's apprentice, who received little more 
than a barber's education, the splendid achievements of whose 
mechanical genius bore the English nation triumphantly through 
the wars of the French Eevolution, and are now declared to be 
of greater value than all her colonies from Hindostan to Labra- 
dor 1 History teems with such examples, showing that giant 
deeds may be performed by apparent pygmies, and that, if 
engaged in a noble cause, there is no social dwarf who may 
not become a moral Hercules. 

There are some men who, instead of making the best use of 
the faculties they have for achievement, are always telling of 



SELF-EELIANCE. 93 

what they might do " under happier circumstances." TJnde* 
happier circumstances ! — as if the very seal and sign of great- 
ness were not precisely the regal superiority to circumstances 
which makes them aids and ministers to success, instead of 
becoming their slave ; as if it were not the masterful will wlpch 
subjugates the forces of nature to be the genii of the lamp ; 
that concentrates twenty years of tireless but unappreciated 
labor on a great invention ; that forces a life-thought into a 
pregnant word or phrase, and sends it ringing through the ages ! 
The truth is, the " circumstances " upon which so many faint- 
hearted men dwell with lugubrious eloquence should be re- 
garded as the very tools with which one is to work, — the 
stepping-stones he is to mount by. As Lewes says in his 
" Life of Goethe," instead of saying that man is the creature 
of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man 
is the architect of circumstances. " Our strength is measured 
by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds 
palaces, another hovels ; one warehouses, another villas ; bricks 
and mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect makes 
them something else. Thus it is that in the same family, in 
the same circumstances, one man rears a stately edifice, while 
his brother, vacillating and incompetent, lives forever amid 
ruins : the block of granite, which was an obstacle in the path- 
way of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of 
the resolute." The difficulties which utterly dishearten one 
man only stiffen the sinews of another, who looks on them as 
simply things to be vanquished, — or rather as a sort of men- 
tal springing-board by which to vault across the gulf of failure 
on to the sure, solid ground of full success. 

Archimedes said, " Give me a standing-place, and I will 
move the world." Goethe has changed the postulate into the 
precept, " Make good thy standing-place, and move the world." 
A reviewer, speaking of the poems of Arthur Clough, says, 
that he " was one of the prospectuses which never become 
works, — one of that class whose unwritten poems, undemon- 
strated discoveries, or untested powers are confidently announced 



94 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

as certain to carry everything before thern, when they appear. 
Only they never do appear." The world is full of such men, 
who are always very " promising " because they never do more 
than promise. 

It is said that when John C. Calhoun was in Yale College 
he was ridiculed by his fellow-students for his intense applica- 
tion to study. " Why, sir," he replied, " I am forced to 
make the most of my time, that I may acquit myself creditably 
when in Congress." A laugh followed, when he exclaimed, " Do 
you doubt it 1 I assure you, if I were not convinced of my 
ability to reach the national capital as a representative within 
the next three years, I would leave college this very day ! " 
Let every young man thus have faith in himself, and take 
earnestly hold of life, scorning all props and buttresses, all 
crutches and life-preservers. Let him believe, with Pestalozzi, 
that no man in God's earth is either willing or able to help 
any other man. Let him strive to be a creator, rather than an 
inheritor, — to bequeath, rather than to borrow. Instead of 
wielding the rusted sword of valorous forefathers, let him forge 
his own weapons, and, conscious of the God in him and the 
Providence over him, let him fight his own battles with his 
own good lance. Instead of sighing for an education, capital, 
or friends, and declaring that, " if he only had these, he would 
be somebody," let him remember that, as Horace Greeley says, 
he is looking through the wrong end of the telescope ; that, if 
he only were somebody, he would speedily have all the boons 
whose absence he is bewailing. Instead of being one of the 
foiled potentialities, of which the world is so full, — one of the 
subjunctive heroes, who always might, could, would, or should 
do great things, but whose not doing great things is what 
nobody can understand, — let him be in the imperative mood, 
and do that of which his talents are indicative. This lesson 
of self-reliance once learned and acted on, and every man will 
discover within himself, under God, the elements and capacities 
of usefulness and honor. 

We have dwelt at some length on the virtue which is the 



SELF-RELIANCE. 95 

subject of this chapter, because it is one which, though no- 
where easy to practise, is especially difficult to attain in com- 
munities like our own, where there is much social tyranny. 
Americans boast fondly of their independence; yet nowhere, per- 
haps, is "Mrs. Grundy" more feared than here. Both men and 
women are, to a great extent, the moral slaves of the set or 
circle to which they belong ; and it is only the heroic few who 
dare to step out into the air of freedom, where they may speak 
" their ain thought " instead of another's. In almost every 
section except the extreme West, there is an unconscious con- 
spiracy among the members of society against each other's indi- 
viduality. Custom dictates our amusements, the furniture of our 
houses, our modes of living, the style of our garments, and the 
education of our children. It tells us what we shall eat, drink, 
wear, when we shall go to bed and get up, what we shall give 
to benevolent objects, where we shall spend the summer months, 
and almost what we shall think. James Russell Lowell ob- 
serves, not more wittily than tridy, that the code of society 
is stronger with most persons than that of Sinai, and many a 
man who would not scruple to thrust his ringers in his neigh- 
bor's pocket, would forego green peas rather than use his knife 
as a shovel. Doubtless this state of things has its compensa- 
tions. Xowhere else are men combined so easily for good 
purposes, — nowhere built so easily into social structures, last- 
ing or temporary, and thousands made to act as one man ; yet 
is it not evident that we gain these advantages at a fearful cost, 
— by too great sacrifices of individual power and individual 
character 1 Are we not too often chipped and chiselled into a 
dreary uniformity of thought and speech 1 Are we not apt to 
become like bricks in a wall, or marbles in a bag 1 In the 
watch-factories at Elgin and Waltham watches are made in- 
terchangeably, so that a hundred may be taken into pieces and 
thrown into a heap, and the parts put together again at random. 
This is a good thing in watches, but who likes to see the same 
dull monotony in men and women 1 

We pity the Chinese who cramp their feet, and the Indians 



96 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

who flatten their heads, in obedience to custom ; but are these 
checks upon physical growth half so contemptible as those put 
in civilized countries upon intellectual by the despotism of 
public opinion 1 Are we entitled to contemn the South-Sea 
Islander, who tattoos his face, while we bow slavishly to cus- 
toms in dress that not only disfigure the person, but are destruc- 
tive to health and comfort, and do every act with mental refer- 
ence to " Mrs. Grundy," saying of her, as Cob did of Bobadil, 
" I do honor the very flea of her dog " 1 Mr. J. S. Mill, in his 
work on " Liberty," says, truly, that in this age the man who 
dares to think for himself and to act independently, does a 
service to the race. " Precisely because the tyranny of opinion 
is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in 
order to break through that tyranny, that people should be 
eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where 
strength of character has abounded ; and the amount of eccen- 
tricity in a society has always been proportioned to the amount 
of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. 
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger 
of the time." 



ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS. 97 



CHAPTEE VII. 

ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS. 

" The powers of man have not been exhausted. Nothing has been done 
by him that cannot be better done. There is no effort of science or art that 
may not be exceeded ; no depth of philosophy that cannot be deeper sounded ; 
no flight of imagination that may not be passed by strong and soaring wing." 

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too 
much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that 
of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of 
Moses or Dante, but different from all these. — R. W. Emerson. 

CLOSELY connected with self-reliance is another prereq- 
uisite to success, namely, originality in one's aims and 
methods, or the avoidance of imitation. For this purpose, it 
is well to cultivate some specialty. Find some new want of 
society, — some fertile source of profit or honor, — some terra 
incognita of business, whose virgin soil is yet unbroken, and 
there stick and grow. Specialties are the open sesame to wealth ; 
therefore, whatever you deal in, whether groceries or speeches, 
bricks or law arguments, must be, or seem to be, phenomenal. 
Whether above or below mediocrity, they should be unique 
and exceptional. Byron satirizes certain namby-pamby rhymes 
as "so middling, bad were better " j and the sarcasm applies 
to all things that are " tolerable, and therefore not to be 
endured." That many-headed monster, the public, like the 
dervishes who replenished Aladdin's exchequer, requires, in 
this sensational age, to be forcibly struck before it will part 
with its silver. To get rid of your wares, whether material, 
or immaterial, — dry goods or professional advice, — silks and 
calicoes or " mouthfuls of spoken wind," — you must get your 
name into everybody's ears, and into everybody's mouth ; and 
to do this, there 's nothing like a specialty. 

5 G 



98 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Alexandre, of Paris, made " kid " gloves his specialty, and 
now his trade-mark imparts to manufactured ratskins a value 
incommunicable by any other talisman. "William and Eobert 
Chambers devoted their energies to the production of cheap 
books and periodicals, and their wealth is counted by millions. 
Faber has fabricated pencils till he has literally made his mark 
in every land, and proved the truth of the aphorism, " Quisque 
suae fortunae faber." The genius of the great Dr. Brandreth 
ran to pills and internal improvements, and now his name and 
fame are as intimately and immortally connected with the 
alimentary canal as Clinton's with the Erie. Mason gave his 
whole soul to the invention of good blacking, and now his 
name shines like a pair of boots to which it has been applied. 
Herring has salamandered himself into celebrity, and Tobias has 
ticked his way to fame and fortune. Stewart has made bales 
of dry-goods his stepping-stones to the proud position of a mil- 
lionnaire, — becoming at once the Croesus and the Colossus of 
the trade ; and Bonner, advertising by the acre, and tracking 
genius where Ever-ett goes, has discovered a new way of reap- 
ing golden harvests from the overworked soil of journalism. 

The extent to which originality — a little thinking — may 
enable one who has a specialty to coin money in his business, 
was strikingly illustrated some years ago in the brass-clock 
business. One of the oldest and most noted manufacturers, 
wishing to keep his name perpetually before the public, con- 
trived to do so by a succession of improvements, — many of 
them exceedingly slight, — which he invariably made known 
through the newspapers. Sometimes he added a new cog, or 
wheel or two, or altered the arrangement of the old ones ; 
sometimes the case was slightly remodelled. Now, the face 
was painted in a very striking manner ; and, next, an added 
hammer was made to strike. This month his clocks were 
made to run eight days ; the next, fifteen ; then, thirty-one, or 
only four-and-twenty hours. No matter how trifling the change, 
it was invariably blazoned in all the leading public prints. By 
this artifice he created a ready market for all his manufactures, 



ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS. 99 

and became the most celebrated clock-maker in the land, though 
all the while scarcely a step was taken in the invention of a 
new principle or even in the improvement of an old one. 

Mix brains, then, with your business, if you would succeed; 
as Opie, the painter, did with his colors. Throw open the win- 
dows of your mind to new ideas, and keep, at least, abreast of 
the times, — if possible, ahead of them. [Nothing is more fatal 
to self-advancement than a stupid conservatism, or servile imi- 
tation. In these days of intense competition, if you would 
achieve a high success you must think for yourself, and, above 
all, cultivate pliableness and versatility. The days when a man 
could get rich by plodding on, without enterprise and without 
taxing his brains, have gone by. Mere industry and economy 
are not enough ; there must be intelligence and original thought. 
Quick-witted Jacks always get ahead of the slow-witted giants. 
Whatever your calling, inventiveness, adaptability, promptness 
of decision, must direct and utilize your force ; and if you 
cannot find markets, you must make them. In business, you 
need not know many books, but you must know your trade 
and men ; you may be slow at logic, but you must dart at a 
chance like a robin at a worm. You may stick to your groove 
in politics and religion ; but in your business you must switch 
into new tracks, and shape yourself to every exigency. We 
emphasize this matter, because in no country is the red-tapist 
so out of place as here. Every calling is filled with bold, keen, 
subtle- witted men, fertile in expedients and devices, who are per- 
petually inventing new ways of buying cheaply, underselling, 
or attracting custom ; and the man who sticks doggedly to the 
old-fashioned methods — who runs in a perpetual rut — will 
find himself outstripped in the race of life, if he is not stranded 
on the sands of popular indifference. Keep, then, your eyes 
open and your wits about you, and you may distance all com- 
petitors ; but ignore all new methods, and you will find your- 
self like a lugger contending with an ocean racer. 

Although the Americans are famous the world over for their 
inventiveness, yet there is no people on whose cranium the 



Lore. 



100 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

organ of imitation is so prominent as on ours. We are not the 
only people who " run everything into the ground " ; but we 
certainly do it more generally, and with greater rapidity, than 
any other nation on the globe. jSTo matter what branch of busi- 
ness is started, — from the manufacture of pills or matches to 
that of sewing-machines or watches, from the ice-trade to the 
traffic in guano or Japanese goods, — the moment any business 
is discovered to be profitable, it is rushed into by thousands 
and tens of thousands, till a reaction follows, and it is ruined. 
How many times have we seen the lumbering business, both 
East and West, from a state of ordinary activity, which yielded 
a handsome profit to those engaged in it, swelled to enormous 
proportions, — prices raised, — lands changing owners at fast 
rising rates, — thousands plunging into it who hardly knew hem- 
lock from pine, — new sawmills going up on every mill-site, 
and old ones running day and night, — the market glutted, — 
when suddenly the bubble burst, bankrupting all concerned ! 
How many times have we seen the ship-building business swell 
and collapse with the same suddenness and disaster ! Men 
who did not know halyards from shrouds, or a jibboom from a 
tiller, have again and again taken up their investments in 
stocks and mortgages, even borrowed money on accommoda- 
tion paper, in their mad haste to share in the fabulous profits 
made by navigation. So with other branches of business ; at 
one time the tide sets toward the raising of morus multicaulis, 
— at another, the heads of the entire community are turned by 
reports of gold-mines, — and, at another, by the fortunes made 
out of wool or oil. To-day some shrewd Yankee starts a " gift" 
bookstore, and immediately all the newspapers in the land are 
flooded with advertisements of gift enterprises. To-morrow 
another sharp Yankee conceives the idea of a" dollar store " ; 
and, the hit proving a lucky one, there is instantly a stampede 
from all the other branches of trade to the " dollar-store " busi- 
ness, till it is so overdone as to be worthless. 

The same tendency to avail ourselves of other men's wits is 
seen in the names of our hotels, of which some, as Tremont, 



ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS. 101 

Revere, St. Nicholas, etc., are repeated ad nauseam. It is a 
poor kind of enterprise which thus depends upon the judg- 
ment of others, strikes out no new paths, and follows blindly 
every man who says, "I have made money." Nothing is more 
certain than that when a business pays very large profits its 
race is nearly run. Those who are already in it may get rich, 
but the late-comers, who strike in only after its profitableness 
has leaked out and become known to the whole community, will 
not only be ruined, but will cut down the profits to a point so 
fine as to render them merely nominal or worse. Let every 
man stick to the business he knows, constantly studying new 
plans to make it more productive, to lessen his expenses and to 
increase his profits. The man who knows all about a ship from 
the keel up will make a living profit, while the amateur, who 
only knows what others tell him, will lose. The foreign trader, 
who knows precisely the wants of the market to which he 
sends his goods, will get rich, while his neighbor, who gets his 
information at second-hand from prices current and general in- 
formation accessible to everybody, will almost inevitably fail. 

Above all, in literature it is imperatively essential to success 
that one should be phenomenal. To make a name which will 
live beyond the hour, you must do something or say something 
worth being done or said, and which has not been done or said 
before. Authors often speak feelingly of the difficulty of being 
original, — of saying anything worth saying which has not 
been said, and better said, by some one of their billions of 
predecessors ; and the dearth of books which are not a mere 
rehash of old ones — which are not got up as an apothecary 
prepares a prescription, by pouring out of many big bottles 
into a little one — proves the truth of the complaint. A 
proof yet more striking is afforded by the host of imitations 
which almost every successful book provokes. ~No sooner does 
a writer make a " hit," or produce a work which makes a de- 
cided sensation, than scores of other works upon similar 
themes and in a similar vein are forthwith extemporized, 
rushed through the press, and crowded in quick succession 



102 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

upon the public. The success of Mr. Butler's exquisite satire, 
" Nothing to Wear," provoked a flood of imitations ; " Ecce 
Homo " was followed by " Ecce Deus," " Ecce Deus Homo," 
and other pale and spiritless copies of the great original ; " The 
Gates Ajar " was followed by " The Gates Wide Open," and 
we had " Gates " of every kind slammed in our faces for 
months afterward. Being imitations, all of these books that 
are written from no inward impulse or inspiration, but, like 
Pindar's razors, to sell, are of course inferior to their originals, 
as an echo is fainter than the sounds it mocks, — for, as Quin- 
tilian pithily says, " he who follows must necessarily come 
after or behind another." When will our writers have done 
with this folly 1 When will they abjure this jackdaw vanity 
of strutting in borrowed plumage 1 When will they be con- 
tent to " gang their ain gait," instead of mimicking the step 
and pace of another 1 When will they learn that a good book 
is a cistern into which a man has poured the thoughts and 
feelings of years, — the net result of a lifetime of experiences, 
— and can no more be " rushed up " in a few weeks or 
months than a man can by taking thought add a cubit to his 
stature 1 When will they leave a man who has electrified the 
community by an original work to enjoy the sensation he has 
created, instead of rushing in to steal his honors, and disgust- 
ing the public by a senseless imitation of his thoughts and 
style ? 

The harshest verdict that can be pronounced upon any liter- 
ary performance is to say that it is an imitation. It is wholly 
damnatory. Better be able to say of your production, as 
Touchstone said of his wife, "It is an ill-favored thing, but 
mine own," than that it is brilliant, but borrowed from or 
modelled after another. If you feel the gad-fly stinging you, 
as the Greeks used to say, and must write, choose a theme of 
your own, and handle it in your own way, — giving to the 
world the hived honey of your mind, your " thrice winnowed" 
ideas, — and never trouble yourself with the thought how this 
or that literary magnate or big-wig would treat the subject. 



ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS. 103 

Tell the world clearly what is passing within your own soul ; 
if it be a poor, needy, begging, borrowing soul, with no native 
ideas, such a process will, no doubt, annihilate you as an au- 
thor ; but so much the better, — you will have ended at once, 
in an honest and courageous attempt, an abortive literary life, 
and restored to your country a useful cobbler, carpenter, or 
hatter. But if you have within you any native pith and sub- 
stance, any of the stuff out of which authors are made, it ia 
thus, and thus only, that you will bring your hidden oi-es, 
your gems of thought, to the light, and give them splendot 
and polish. It has been truly said that what are called jUishei 
of mind in a writer are ignited by the rapid pen, and that on« 
flash of a man's own mind is more profitable to hims&lf, anc\ 
will do him more credit with the public, than a myriad or 
second-hand ones. We do not, of course, advocate au impos- 
sible originality. Thorwalsden's Mercury was suggested by a 
lad whom he had seen sitting at rest ; but that does liot lessen 
our admiration of the sculptor's genius. Hazlitt tells us that 
when Kean was so much praised for the action of Richard III., 
in his last struggle with his triumphant antagonist, where he 
stands, after his sword is wrested from him, with his hands 
stretched out, "as if his will could not be disarmed, and the 
very phantoms of his despair had a withering poww," he said 
that he borrowed the idea from seeing the last effo** of Painter 
in his fight with Oliver. But this, surely, does not detract 
from Kean's merit. Xo doubt the most original writer, like 
the bee, will have drawn his capital stock of ideas, his funded 
store, from a variety of sources ; but as the bee, though it 
rifles all the flowers of the field of their sweets, Lts not the 
honey betray the prevailing flavor of any single aectary, so 
will it be with him who makes the honey of Hym^ttus. He 
will lay all literature under contribution to supply his stores, 
but every foreign thought will be passed through the alembic 
of his own brain, and its elements recombined, before it is 
given again to the public. Like old coin, it will be melted 
and reminted, before it is again put in circulation. A writer 



104 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

who is worth reading cannot servilely imitate ; he has that 
within him which not only places him above so doing, but 
which would render such a process the severest and most un- 
natural task to which he could subject his powers. His style, 
as well as his thoughts, is the natural outgrowth of himself, 
and he can no more ape another man's style than he can ape 
his gait or wear his clothes. 

Let the writer, then, who pants for notoriety or covets true 
fame, follow Pat's advice to a bad orator, — come out from be- 
hind his nose, and speak in his own natural voice. The 
heaven of popular approbation is only to be taken by storm. 
Emerson has startled the world by his Emersonisms, and not 
by echoes of Carlyle, as many imagine, for he is like Carlyle 
only in being original. Edgar A. Poe, with all his personal 
faults, eternized his name on the scroll of American authors 
simply by being Edgar A. Poe ; but who reads the legion 
parodies of The Raven ? Cooper has won a great name as a 
novelist, though his writings are stuck as full of faults as the 
firmament with stars ; while thousands of romancers of equal 
ability have gone to the " tomb of the Capulets," because they 
have tried to be unlike themselves. Who can forget how, 
when Sir Walter Scott first kindled the torch of his genius at 
the fires of feudal poesy, working out new scenes of interest 
from the warblings of scalds and troubadors and minnesingers, 
his thrilling cadences were mimicked by a whole forest of 
mocking-birds, who made the heavens vocal with the glories 
of moss-trooper and marauder, baron bold and gay ladye, 
hound in leash and hawk in hood, bastion huge and gray 
chapelle, henchmen and servitors, slashed sleeves and Spanish 
boots, " guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder " ? 
No sooner had the Wizard of the North gracefully resigned 
his wand to a mightier Prospero, whose star of popularity had 
shot with a burst to the zenith, than, presto ! down went 
Ehoderick Dhu and Wat of Buccleuch before Hassan and 
Selim ; the paeans to Rosabelle were exchanged for the praises 
of Medora; the plaid and the bonnet for the white turban 



ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS. 105 

and the baggy trousers ; and over the whole realm of song 
arose the Oriental dynasty under the prime viziership of Byron. 
Ten thousand puny rhymsters called the moon " Phingari," 
daggers " Ataghans," drummers " Tambourgis," and women 
" Houris " ; became lovers of gin and haters of pork ; dis- 
carded their neck-cloths, and put on sack-cloth ; strove perse- 
veringly in turn-down collars to look Conrad-like and misan- 
thropic ; swore by the beard of the Prophet, and raved in 
Spenserian stanzas about their " burning brows," or mourned 
over their " dark imaginings " ; dreamed by night of gazelle- 
eyed beauties, by day of Giaours, Jereed-men, and Janizaries ; 
and, whether baker's, butcher's, or barber's apprentices, became 
the oracles of impassioned wretchedness, and — when they 
could raise money enough — adventured, in hacks hired by the 
hour, imitations of Mazeppa at a hand-gallop along the high- 
way. Where are they all now ? Alas ! the whole swarm of 
romances in six cantos with historical notes, alike with the 
ten thousand echoes of Byron, have long since gone to the 
land of forgetfulness ; or, if they live in an accommodated 
sense of the term, owe it to the tender mercies of the pastry- 
cook and the trunkmaker. 

What can be more absurd than for a man to hope to rank as 
a thundering Jupiter, when he borrows all his thunder 1 How 
can you expect the world to honor you, when you despise 
yourself? The great I is the first element of an Idol. Be true 
to yourself, if you would have the world true to you. Your 
own gift you can exhibit every moment with the cumulative 
force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the borrowed talent of 
another you have only a temporary half-possession. Do not be 
frightened because your idiosyncrasies stick out, and provoke 
criticism ; it is only by these that you can be identified. If 
you are knock-kneed and hump-backed ; if you are squint-eyed, 
and look two ways at once, — so much the better ; you can't 
be confounded with the commonplace, stereotyped bipeds who 
make up that "numerous piece of monstrosity," the public. 
If your hair is red, let it be red ; to be called red-headed 
5* 



106 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Smith or Brown will distinguish, you from other Smiths or 
Browns. 

If a writer is conscious of inward emptiness, let him be 
dumb, remembering that " ex nihilo nihil lit " ; but if he has 
any native pith and substance, — any of the genuine stuff of 
thought, — within him, he can hardly be too fearless in thrust-- 
ing himself before the public. It is not your herd of imitators, 
— the servile pecus, who are always looking abroad for models, 
who are forever trying to catch the tone, air, gait, or periwig 
of this or that great original, — that gain celebrity as authors. 
A man's nature can only squeak ozit, when subjected to such 
discipline. " Shakespeare," says Emerson, " never will be made 
by the study of Shakespeare. The Scipionism of Scipio is pre- 
cisely that part he could not borrow." Let the young author 
be what Andrew Jackson Allen, the eccentric New York cos- 
tumer, used to proclaim himself in his advertisements, "himself 
alone " ; let him grapple firmly and fearlessly with his own 
ideas, and wreak his own thoughts upon expression in his own 
way, if he would win the praise of immortality. " To know 
his own aims," as Goethe recommends, " in the first place, and 
then manfully to follow them, looking neither to the right nor 
left, forward or backward," is the great secret of authorship. 

Such a writer legislates from the independent throne of a 
separate existence, and his are the words to command the re- 
spect due to oracular authority, and to win the meed due to 
undisputed fame. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said that in 
all her extended travels she had found but two classes of human 
beings, — men and women ; but strong as may be the generic 
resemblance between different minds, the fact is nevertheless 
obvious, that no man lives who has not his mental peculiarities 
and idiosyncrasies, — who differs not in many respects, in soul 
as in body, from every other man ; and if a writer fails to ex- 
cite a sympathetic thrill in the public mind, it is because he 
lacks self-reliance, — because, parrot-like, he repeats the sayings 
of others, instead of giving us the coinage of his own brain, — 
because, in short, he does not stamp his writings with his own 
individualitv. 



ATTENTION TO DETAILS. 107 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

ATTENTION TO DETAILS. 

My man who is to succeed must not only be industrious, but, to use an 
expression of a learned friend of mine, he must have " an almost ignominious 
love of details. " — Arthur Helps. 

On the first publication of his (Wellington's) " Despatches," one of his 
friends said to him, on reading the records of his Indian campaigns : " It 
seems to me, Duke, that your chief business in India was to procure rice and 
bullocks." "And so it was," replied Wellington, "for if I had rice and 
bullocks, I had men ; and if I had men, I knew I could beat the enemy." — 
Character, by Samuel Smiles. 

ANOTHER indispensable element of sucoess is attention 
to details. Some years ago an Eastern merchant, who 
had amassed a large fortune, was asked to what he attributed 
his success. Was it to mere chance 1 No ; for other men 
had even better luck, yet did not get rich. Was it to in- 
dustry ] Not wholly • for many persons as indefatigable as 
himself had remained poor. Was it to energy 1 Only in part ; 
for he had observed that even the most energetic men some- 
times failed. But, if there was any one thing to which, more 
than to others, he could attribute his wealth, it was that he had 
made it a point never to neglect the details of his business. 
Many business men, he added, content themselves with plan- 
ning ; regarding comprehensive views as incompatible with 
scrupulous attention to small matters, they leave the execution 
of their schemes to subordinates ; and the result is that, in the 
majority of cases, their plans fall through in consequence of 
the neglect of some clerk or other employee, and they remain 
forever at the foot of the ladder. 

Does not every day's experience prove the sagacity of these 
observations 1 In the case of gifted men, especially, what 



108 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

cause of failure do we find more fruitful or frequent than that 
here indicated, — the contempt of details ? Their souls fire 
with lofty conceptions of some work to be achieved; their 
minds warm with enthusiasm as they contemplate the object 
already attained ; but, when they begin to put the scheme 
into execution, they turn away in disgust from the dry mi- 
nutiae and vulgar drudgery which are required for its perfec- 
tion. Hence the world is full of mute, inglorious Miltons, who 
languish, not from lack of talents, but because, in spite of 
their many brilliant parts, they lack something which the 
famous possess. Some little defect mars all their excellences, 
and they hang fire. They are like Swift's dancing-master, 
who had every qualification except that he was lame. The 
watch is nearly complete ; it only lacks hands. The cannon 
is perfect, except it has no touch-hole. The mouse-trap is just 
the thing, but they have forgotten the cheese. Such men 
bewail their fate, and so would addled eggs, if they could 
speak, which are so like the rest, but so dishonorably inferior, 
bailing to do the small tasks of life well, they have no calls to 
higher ones, and so they complain of neglect ; as if the skip- 
per of a schooner, on which every rope was sagging, and every 
sail rotting, through his negligence, should complain of the in- 
justice done him in not making him commander of a seventy- 
four ! The truth is, to be successful in any profession, one 
must have what has been called " an almost ignominious love 
of details." It is an element of effectiveness with which no 
reach of plan, no loftiness of design, no enthusiasm of purpose, 
can dispense. It is this which makes the difference between 
the practical man, who pushes his thought to a useful result, 
and the mere dreamer ; between the Stephenson, who created 
a working locomotive-engine, and his predecessors, who con- 
ceived the idea of it, but could not put their thought into 
execution. In literature it is the conscientious and laborious 
attention to details — nicety in the selection and arrangement 
of words, even particles — that distinguishes a masterpiece of 
composition from a merely clever performance. So, too, in 



ATTENTION TO DETAILS. 109 

art. Whoever lias looked over the collections of drawings of 
the old masters must have been most deeply impressed by the 
slow growth of their works, owing to their conscientious nicety 
about little things. In nothing do they differ more from com- 
mon painters than in their almost endless dwelling upon some 
small detail, — a foot, or a hand, or a face, — fashioning and 
refashioning it, but never once losing sight of the original idea. 

It has often been said that, if a man conceives the idea of 
becoming eminent in learning, and cannot toil through the 
million little drudgeries necessary to carry hini on, his learning 
will soon be told. Or, if he undertakes to become rich, but 
despises the small and gradual advances by which wealth is 
ordinarily accumulated, his expectations will, of course, be the 
sum of his riches. Let a lawyer neglect the apparently petty 
circumstances of his case, and he will be almost sure to lose it ; 
for some vital fact, perhaps the keystone of the whole, will be 
likely to escape his attention. Let the conveyancer omit the 
details of a deed, — the little words that seem like surplusage, 
— and he will continually involve his clients in litigation, and 
often subject them to the loss of their property. The differ- 
ence between first and second class work in every department 
of labor lies chiefly in the degrees of care with which the 
minutife are executed. 

All successful men have been remarkable, not only for gen- 
eral scope and vigor, but for their minute attention to details. 
Like the elephant, they can move colossal masses or pick up a 
pin. When Daniel Cady, the celebrated !N"ew York lawyer, 
had a case to argue, his labor on the details was enormous. He 
took it to his bed and board ; had inspirations concerning it 
in his sleep ; repeatedly arose at night to secure these by mem- 
oranda ; and never ceased to mine and chamber in a great case, 
till it was actually called on the calendar. Then were to be 
seen the equipment and power of a great lawyer. When 
Brunelleschi elaborated the design of that cathedral in Flor- 
ence which is one of the wonders of Italy, he did not content 
himself with leaving the execution of it to others, but per- 



110 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

sonally superintended the laying of every brick of the dome, 
and even, it is thought, ascertained its specific gravity before 
laying it in its place. 

It is said of Turner, the great English landscape painter, 
who sucked into the vortex of his own marvellous genius each 
past faculty of each past landscape painter, and re-created the 
art, that, though he began poor, and did a deal of drudgery 
for a small pittance, he never slighted even the humblest piece 
of work. Whether washing in skies in India ink upon other 
people's drawings at so much a night, or drawing cheap fron- 
tispieces for almanacs, he did everything conscientiously, never 
slobbering over his task, and making each day a step in ad- 
vance upon his previous work. So in war. The general 
whose name rings in every ear, and thrills a nation with pride, 
does not become a hero by lofty conceptions alone, but by the 
patient acquisition of military details, and incessant, business- 
like care for the food, dress, and health of his men. Ten 
thousand tedious trifles attended to — ten thousand orders 
given and disappointments borne — go to the making up of a 
triumph. " See, the conquering hero comes ! " is an excel- 
lent tune ; but before tins he has had to march in the mud, 
pore over crumpled maps, and work vulgar sums after mid- 
night, by a flickering lantern, in a gusty tent. While you 
were snoring in a feather-bed, he has slept on the ground in 
wet clothes, stung by mosquitoes, without a supper, and with a 
headache. He has had to taste rations, economize hard-tack, 
order executions, disarm jealousy, hire mules, eat mouldy bis- 
cuit, swallow chagrins, and digest opposition. He has brooded 
with ceaseless interest over military problems during the pip- 
ing times of peace ; he has read, like Havelock, every military 
memoir, and familiarized himself with every memorable battle 
and siege of ancient and modern times ; he has kept his soul 
" up in arms " and his wits at his fingers' ends, year after 
year ; and now, but not until now, has the steady fire of his 
life burned up into a national triumph, and the people split 
their throats with the name of Sherman or Grant. 



ATTENTION TO DETAILS. Ill 

Napoleon was a striking illustration of what we have stated. 
What was the secret of his brilliant victories 1 Was it not his 
habits of personal observation and minute attention to details 1 
Two qualities he had in a pre-eminent degree, — strict economy 
of time, and the habit of mastering the whole of every subject 
which he needed to be acquainted with. To a vivid imagination, 
which enabled him to look along extended lines of action, he 
united the ability to deal with the smallest matters essential to 
success with almost unerring judgment and rapidity. While 
other generals trusted to subordinates, he gave his personal atten- 
tion to the marching of his troops, the commissariat, and other 
laborious and small affairs. His vast and daring plans, it has 
been truly said, would have been visionary in any other man ; 
but out of his brain every vision flew a chariot of iron, because it 
was filled up in all the details of execution, to be a solid and com- 
pact framework in every part. No miserly merchant ever showed 
more exact attention to the pence and farthings, or exhibited a 
more thorough knowledge of the state of his ledger, than did 
the hero of Austerlitz concerning his men, horses, equipments, 
and the minute details, as well as the totality, of his force. 

We find him directing where horses were to be obtained, 
arranging for an adequate supply of saddles, ordering shoes for 
the soldiers, and specifying the number of rations of bread, bis- 
cuit, and spirits that were to be brought to camp, or stored in 
magazines for the use of his troops. In one letter he asks Ney 
if he has received the muskets sent to him; in another he 
gives directions to Jerome about the shirts, great-coats, clothes, 
shoes, shakos, and arms to be served out to the Wurternberg 
regiments ; then he informs Darn that the army wants shirts, 
and that they don't come to hand. Again, to the Grand Due 
de Berg he sends a complaint that the men want sabres ; " send 
An officer to obtain them at Posen. It is said that they also 
want helmets ; order that they be made at Ebling." Again he 
writes : " The return which you sent me is not clear. I do 
not see the position of Gen. Gardanne's division, nor his force. 
.... I see companies that do not properly belong to the army of 



112 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Naples. This carelessness will at last derange the administra- 
tion of the army and destroy its discipline. Send me perfectly 
accurate returns." " The returns of my armies," says he, in a 
letter written in 1806, "form the most agreeable portion of 
my library." Again, speaking of these monthly reports, which 
filled twenty thick volumes, he says : " When they are sent 
to me, I give up every occupation in order to read them in de- 
tail, and to observe the difference between one monthly return 
and another. No young girl enjoys her novel so much as I do 
these returns." Lord Brougham, in noticing this extraordinary 
attention to details, says : " The captain who conveyed Napo- 
leon to Elba expressed to me his astonishment at his precise 
and, as it were, familiar knowledge of all the minute details 
connected with the ship. I heard from one connected with 
the great Helvetic mediation, in 1802, that, though the deputies* 
soon found how hopeless they were of succeeding with the 
First Consul, yet they felt themselves defeated in the long dis- 
cussion by one more thoroughly master of all the details of 
the complicated question than they could have believed it pos- 
sible for any foreigner to become." 

It was this practice which enabled him to concentrate his 
forces in so overwhelming numbers on a given point ; for his 
close scrutiny into details — his almost preternatural knowl- 
edge of the place where a corps, or even a company, of his vast 
armies was to be found at any time — produced exactness and 
punctuality among his sub-officers, and hence the various de- 
tachments of his army were always where he wished at the 
very hour. His armies, in short, were, together, "only one 
great engine of desolation, of which he was the head or brain. 
Numbers, spaces, times, were all distinct in his eye. The 
wheeling of every legion, however remote, was mentally present 
to him ; the tramp of every foot, the beat of every drum, the 
rumbling of every carriage-wheel, sounded in his ear." The 
success of his plans, therefore, being left to no contingency, so 
far as contingencies could be guarded against, was as absolutely 
certain as human wit or wisdom could make it. A striking 



ATTENTION TO DETAILS. 113 

illustration of this is furnished by the campaign of 1805, as 
described by an English writer. In that year Napoleon broke up 
the great camp he had formed on the shores of the Channel, and 
gave orders for that mighty host to defile toward the Danube. 
Vast and various, however, as were the projects fermenting in 
his brain, he did not simply content himself with giving the 
orders, and leaving the elaboration of its details to his lieuten- 
ants. To details and minutiae, which inferior captains would 
have deemed too microscopic for their notice, he gave such 
exhaustive attention that, before the bugle had sounded for 
the march, he had planned the exact route which every 
regiment was to follow, the exact day it was to arrive at each 
station on the road, the exact day and hour it was to leave 
that station, as well as the precise moment when it was to 
reach its place of destination. These details, so thoroughly 
premeditated, were carried out to the letter, and the result — 
the fruit of that memorable march — was the victory of 
Austerlitz, which sealed for ten long years the fate of Europe. 

It was to the same business qualities, not less than to his 
military genius, that Napoleon's great opponent, the Duke of 
Wellington, owed his successes. He left nothing to chance, 
but carefully provided for every contingency. He gave his 
attention, not only to the great matters, but to the pettiest 
details of the service ; and was wont to concentrate all his 
energies, at times, on things apparently so ignominious as the 
manner in which the soldiers were to cook their provisions, 
their shoes, camp-kettles, biscuits, horse-fodder, and the exact 
speed at which bullocks were to be driven. It was owing, in 
a large measure, to this practical talent and constant watchful- 
ness of small matters that he not only won brilliant victories 
amid the greatest discouragements, but had the rare distinction 
of never losing a battle. 

So with our own generals, Sherman and Thomas. The 
correspondence of the former during the late war, published 
by the government, shows that for months and months before 
his " great march " through the South, he was studying the 



114 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

country through which he was about to go, its resources, its 
power of sustaining armies, its populousness, the habits of the 
people, — in short everything that could throw light upon the 
probable success of his expedition. He had, in fact, literally 
gone over the entire country in advance. Of General Thomas, 
his comrade, General Steadman tells us that " he was careful 
in all the details of a battle, but once in the fight, was as furious 
and impetuous as Jackson. He lacked nothing to make a per- 
fect man. No man ever imparted so much enthusiasm to his 
troops, and I never saw a commander who could hurl at any 
enemy the entire force of his army with such violence as 
General Thomas." 

Is it not strange that, in the face of these facts, men will 
neglect details ? that many even consider them beneath their 
notice, and, when they hear of the success of a business man 
who is, perhaps, more solid than brilliant, sneeringly say that 
he is " great in little things " % Is it not the " little things " 
that, in the aggregate, make up whatever is great % Is it not 
the countless grains of sand that make the beach ; the trees 
that form the forest ; the successive strata of rock that compose 
the mountains ; the myriads of almost imperceptible stars that 
whiten the heavens with the milky-way'? And of what is 
human happiness made up, but of little things 1 " One prin- 
cipal reason," says Jeremy Bentham, "why our existence has 
so much less of happiness crowded into it than is accessible to 
us, is that we neglect to gather up those minute particles of 
pleasure which every moment offers to our acceptance. In 
striving after a sum total, we forget the ciphers of which it 
is composed ; struggling against inevitable results, which he 
cannot control, too often man is heedless of those accessible 
pleasures whose amount is by no means inconsiderable when 
collected together. Stretching out his hand to catch the stars, 
man forgets the flowers at his feet, so beautiful, so fragrant, so 
multitudinous, and so various." 



PRACTICAL TALENT. 115 



CHAPTEE IX. 

PRACTICAL TALENT. 

" Every fish has its fly ; but even the right fly is not enough ; you must 
play it nicely at the right spot." 

The man who sees too widely is nearly sure to be indecisive, or to appear 
so. Hence, also, comes an appearance, sometimes of shuffling, and some- 
times of over-subtlety, which is very harmful to a man. — Arthur Helps. 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with a pale cast of thought. — Shakespeare. 

Ni Bacon, ni Shakespeare, ni Moliere, ni Pascal, ni Tasse, ni Dante n'aura- 
ient fait grande figure dans une revolution. lis auraient trop vu, trop com- 
pris, trop doute, trop craint, trop souffert, trop pressenti, et trop dedaigne. 
— Philerkte Chasles. 

" At a gathering in Australia, not long since, four persons met, three of 
whom were shepherds on a sheep-farm. One of these had taken a degree at 
Oxford, another at Cambridge, the third at a German university. The fourth 
was their employer, a squatter, rich in flocks and herds, but scarcely able to 
read and write, much less to keep accounts." 

ANOTHER vital element of success is practical talent, or 
that indescribable quality which results from a union of 
worldly knowledge with shrewdness and tact. 

An English writer, in describing a thoroughly practical man, 
says that " he knows the world as a mite knows cheese. The 
mite is born in cheese, — lives in cheese, — beholds cheese. 
If he thinks at all, his thoughts (which, of course, are mitey 
thoughts) are of cheese. The cheese-press, curds, and whey, 
the frothy pail, the milkmaid, cow, and pasture, enter not the 
mite's imagination at all. If any one were to ask him, * Why 
cheese 1 ' he would certainly answer, ' Because cheese ' ; and 
when he is eaten by mistake, he tastes so thoroughly of the 
cheese that the event remains unnoticed, and his infinitesimal 
identity becomes absorbed in the general digestion of caseine 
matter, without comment of the consumer." 



116 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

These remarks, though a seeming jest, only burlesque an im- 
portant truth; namely, the thorough identification with his 
business, and comparative indifference to all things else, which 
are necessary to every man who would succeed in any art, 
trade, or profession. Of all the causes of failure, there is none 
more frequent or fruitful than the lack of practical talent. 
The fact that to give good advice implies no capacity of follow- 
ing it has often been illustrated in the world's history. The 
mere theorist rarely evinces practical wisdom ; and, conversely, 
the practical man rarely displays a high degree of speculative 
ability. The possession of brilliant intellectual qualities, in 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, proves a bar rather than a 
help to worldly advancement. If you try to cut a stone with 
a razor, the razor will lose its edge, and the stone remain uncut. 
A very high education, again, unless it is practical as well as 
classical and scientific, too often unfits a man for contest with 
his fellows. You have rifled the cannon till the strength of 
the metal is gone. Intellectual culture, if carried beyond a cer- 
tain point, is too often purchased at the expense of moral vigor. 
It gives edge and splendor to a man, but draws out all his 
temper. There is reason to fear that in the case of not a few 
persons the mind is so rounded and polished by education, so 
well balanced, as not to be energetic in any one faculty. They 
become so symmetrical as to have no point ; while in other 
men, not thus trained, the sense of deficiency and of the sharp, 
jagged corners of their knowledge lead to efforts to fill up the 
chasms, that render them at last far more learned and better 
educated men than the smooth, polished, easy-going graduate 
who has just knowledge enough to prevent the consciousness 
of his ignorance. In youth it is not desirable that the mind 
should be too evenly balanced. While all its faculties should 
be cultivated, it is yet desirable that it should have two or 
three rough-hewn features of massive strength. Young men 
who spend many years at school are too apt to forget the great 
end of life, which is to be and do, not to read and brood over what 
other men have been and done. Emerson tells us that England 



PRACTICAL TALENT. 117 

is filled with " a great, silent crowd of thoroughbred Grecians," 
who prune the orations and point the pens of its orators and 
writers, but who, " unless of impulsive nature, are indisposed 
from writing or speaking by the fulness of their minds and the 
severity of their tastes." Is such culture a blessing 1 ? Can 
any one doubt that a training which thus paralyzes the energies, 
which converts the powers of the mind that should be crea- 
tive into qualities purely negative and critical, is a bar 
rather than a help to worldly success 1 Do we not see daily, 
in all the walks of life, half-educated men rush in with eager- 
ness, and, by their daring, their outspoken sympathies, their 
fulness and earnestness of utterance, sway multitudes of their 
fellow-beings, while the over-educated, " silent Greeks," with 
their doubts, their misgivings, their critical fastidiousness, their 
half-utterances, and, above all, that spirit of self-depreciation 
which comes from high culture, suffer their native hue of reso- 
lution to be " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought " '? It 
has been justly said that the creative age in every literature 
has preceded the critical, and that so must it be in every man's 
life. A little blindness, a little self-confidence, a little igno- 
rance of his own weaknesses and defects, are imperatively ne- 
cessary, if one would strive with hope and pluck to win the 
world's prizes. Many a young man is so exquisitely cultivated 
as to be good for nothing but to be kept in a show-case as a 
specimen of what the most approved system of education can 
do. With the exception of the few comet-like geniuses that, at 
rare intervals, flash through the firmament of humanity, it is 
the slow-headed, dull, unimaginative man, with colossal powers 
of labor, and the patience to abide results, and to profit by the 
mistakes of his more gifted fellow-mortals, that is most likely 
to come out ahead in the race of life. At cricket-playing it is 
hard hitting and quick running that win the game. Good 
fielding, elegant wicket-keeping, fast bowling, are all well in 
their way ; but only notches score. So the game of life is won 
less by brilliant strokes than by energetic, yet cautious play, 
and never missing an easy hazard. 



118 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Do not misunderstand this. We do not decry culture. No 
doubt intellectual training is to be prized. But practical 
knowledge is necessary to make it available. The experience 
gained from books, however valuable, is of the nature of learn- 
ing ; but the experience gained from actual life is wisdom ; 
and an ounce of the latter is worth a pound of the former. 
All history shows that the rough work of the world is not 
done by men of fine culture. Courage is not developed by the 
study of Greek accents. Creative power is not increased by 
logic. Insight is an instinct, — not a product of education. 
The greatest men in the world have not been elegant and 
polished scholars. There were wise men in Europe before there 
were printed books. The men who wrested Magna Charta 
could not write their own names. Bolingbroke, the scholar- 
statesman, fled an exile from England; while Walpole, who 
scorned literature, held power for thirty years. " In general," 
says his son, "he loved neither reading nor writing." Lord 
Mahon justly observes that Walpole's splendid success in life, 
notwithstanding his want of learning, may tend to show what 
is too commonly forgotten in modern plans of education, 
that it is of far more importance to have the mind well 
disciplined than richly stored, — strong rather than full. 
Brindley and Stephenson did not learn to read and write till 
they were twenty years old ; yet the one gave Britain her 
railways and the other her canals. It has been remarked that 
Disraeli, whose speeches are often a literary luxury, has never 
laid down a single principle of policy, foreign or domestic, nor 
brought forward a great measure which was not ignominiously 
scouted. On the other hand, Sir Eobert Peel, whose speeches 
were often the heaviest of platitudes, and whose quotations 
were usually from the Eton grammar, reversed his country's 
financial policy, regenerated Ireland, and died with the blessings 
of all Englishmen on his head. What practical good have the 
lettered politicians of France achieved for their country? or 
what nation is more misgoverned than that which makes liter- 
ary culture the sole criterion of fitness for office, — the Chinese 1 



PRACTICAL TALENT. 119 

"Did not Napoleon complain of Laplace, that as Minister of 
the Interior he was always searching after subtleties, that all 
his ideas were problems, and that he carried the spirit of the 
infinitesimal calculus into the management of business ? Where 
shall we find men of finer culture than the professors who 
filled the Frankfort Diet in 1848 1 Yet, with all their scholar- 
ship, they made themselves the laughing-stock of Europe, and, 
with sixty millions of brave men at their back, were snuffed 
out without a struggle. Life teems with such illustrations. 
Every day we see men of high culture distanced in the race of 
life by the upstart who cannot spell, — the practical dunce out- 
stripping the theorizing genius. " Men have ruled well," says 
Sir Thomas Browne, " who could not perhaps define a common- 
wealth ; and they who understand not the globe of the earth 
command a great part of it." Charlemagne could barely sign 
his own name; Cromwell was "inarticulate"; Macaulay's 
asthmatic hero scarcely possessed a book J and Frederick the 
Great could not spell in any of the three languages which he 
habitually mispronounced. Many of our greatest men were born 
in the backwoods; and the strongest hand that has held the 
helm of our government, — a hand that would have throttled 
secession in its cradle, — belonged to one whom his biographer 
pronounces " the most ignorant man in the world." 

All experience shows that for worldly success it is far more 
important to have the mind well trained than rich in the 
spoils of learning. Books, Bacon has well observed, can never 
teach the use of books. It is comparatively easy to be a good 
biographer, but very difficult to live a life worth writing. 
Some of the world's most useful work is done by men who 
cannot tell the chemical composition of the air they breathe or 
the water they drink, and who, like M. Jourdain, daily talk 
nouns, verbs, and adverbs without knowing it. They know 
nothing of agricultural chemistry, but they can produce sixty 
bushels of corn to the acre. They cannot give a philosophical 
account of the lever, but they know, as well as George Ste- 
phenson, that the shorter the " bite " of a crowbar the greater 



120 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

is the power gained. Like Sir John Hunter, they may be 
ignorant of the dead languages, but they may be able to teach 
those who sneer at their ignorance " that which they never 
knew in any language, dead or living." Like Andrea Ferrara, 
of Scotland, who, in the fourth century, turned out so delicately 
tempered blades from his dark cellar in the Highlands, they 
may lack all the tools and appliances of modern skilled labor, 
yet surpass in their manufactures all competitors. On the 
other hand, there are many persons in whose intellectual and 
moral character, as Macaulay says of the Duke of Monmouth, 
the natural son of Charles II., there is an abundance of those 
fine qualities which may be called luxuries, and a lamentable 
deficiency of those solid qualities which are of the first neces- 
sity. " He had brilliant wit and ready invention without 
common-sense, and chivalrous generosity and delicacy without 
common honesty." 

Even the highest genius will not enable a man to achieve 
worldly success without practical knowledge. It is no doubt 
the peculiar privilege of genius to anticipate the tardy con- 
clusions of experience, and to see as by a flash what others 
learn by years of observation. The eagle swoops down upon 
the prey which the cat must cautiously approach, and secure 
after patient watching. But no genius, however exalted, can 
dispense with experience in the practical affairs of life. A 
mineralogist is not necessarily a good miner. Astronomy is 
not navigation, and even Bowditch or Bond must give place to 
a pilot in getting a ship out of the harbor of New York. 

In short, the crown of all faculties is common-sense. It is 
not the men of thought, but the men of action, who are best 
fitted to push their way to wealth and honor. The secret of 
all success lies in being alive to what is going on around one ; 
in adjusting one's self to his conditions ; in being sympathetic 
and receptive ; in knowing the wants of the time ; in saying 
to one's fellows what they want to hear, or what they need to 
hear, at the right moment ; in being the sum, the concretion, 
the result, of the influences of the present time. It is not 



PKACTICAL TALENT. 121 

enough to do the right thing per se ; it must be done at the 
right time and place. Frederick the Great said of Joseph II., 
Emperor of Germany, that he always wanted to take the 
second step before he had taken the first. The world is full 
of such unpractical people, who fail because they refuse to 
recognize the thousand conditions which fence a man in, and 
are impatient to reach the goal without passing over the inter- 
mediate ground. It is not so often talents which the unsuc- 
cessful man lacks as tact. "Talent," says a writer, "knows 
what to do, tact knows how to do it; talent makes a man 
respectable, tact will make him respected ; talent is wealth, 
tact is ready money. For all the practical purposes of life, 
tact carries it against talent ten to one. Talent has many a 
compliment from the bench, but tact touches fees from attor- 
neys and clients. Talent speaks learnedly and logically, tact 
triumphantly. Talent makes the world wonder that it gets on 
no faster, tact excites astonishment that it gets on so fast. And 
the secret is, that it has no weight to carry ; it makes no false 
steps ; it loses no time ; it takes all hints ; and by keeping its 
eye on the weathercock, is able to take advantage of every 
wind that blows." 
As Emerson sings, — 

" Tact clinches the bargain ; 
Sails out of the bay ; 
Gets the vote in the Senate 
Spite of Webster or Clay." 

There are some men who, with heads little better than a 
pin's, are apparently successful in everything they undertake. 
If wealth is their aim, they seem to stumble by mere good luck 
upon the philosopher's stone ; they have Midas's ears, but every- 
thing they touch turns to gold. Men, on the other hand, who 
have shown the profoundest ability in their writings, have 
proved feeble and inefficient in active life, — incapable of act- 
ing upon their own conclusions. They are acute and sagacious 
enough as observers, but the moment they descend from their 
solitary elevation, and mingle with the crowd of their fellow- 



122 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

creatures, their wisdom evaporates in words. "With broad 
views and a capacity for deep reasoning on human affairs, they 
feel themselves bewildered in every actual emergency; keen 
and close observers of the talents and accomplishments, and 
even the weaknesses, of their fellow-men, they cannot actualize 
their own ideal of wise conduct. Giants in the closet, they 
prove but children in the world. 

Lord Bacon, who was one of the wisest of human beings, 
was a striking illustration of this truth. He stood on the high 
vantage-ground of genius and learning ; had an amazing in- 
sight- into human nature ; and traced, " as in a map the 
voyager his course," the long, devious march of the human 
intellect, its elevations and depressions, its windings and its 
errors. Yet even this mighty genius, in whom reason worked 
as an instinct, though he was the most sagacious of men in his 
study, nevertheless, when he stepped from its " calm, still air " 
into the noisy arena of life, stooped sometimes to actions of 
which he could strikingly have shown the impropriety in a 
moral essay. Addison, it is well known, rose by the force of 
his own genius to be Secretary of State ; but, though he had 
every opportunity for qualifying himself for his post, he found 
himself incompetent, and was forced to solicit his dismission 
with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. The fine 
intellect of Cowper could trace with subtlety and truth all the 
crooks and windings of human nature • yet when he came to 
act for himself, he was a sorry bungler, and showed no tact in 
turning his sense and knowledge to practical account. Such 
were his timidity and shyness that he declared any public ex- 
hibition of himself to be mortal poison to his feelings. Dean 
Swift, the pride of his master at school, was buried in a country 
parsonage at eightscore pounds a year ; while Stafford, his 
schoolmate, an impenetrable blockhead, acquired half a million 
of dollars. Dante, boiling with indignation against his enemies, 
could curse better than he could conspire. Machiavelli, con- 
summate master of all the tricks and stratagems of politics, 
could not invent one to get his bread. Corneille did not re- 



PRACTICAL TALENT. 123 

serve a crown for his old age, and was so miserably poor as to 
have his stockings mended at the street-corner. Beethoven was 
so ignorant of finance that he did not know enough to cut the 
coupon from a bond to raise a little money, instead of selling 
the entire instrument. He was so unpractical that, when thirty- 
seven years old, he sent a friend three hundred florins to buy 
him linen for some shirts and a half-dozen pocket-handkerchiefs; 
and about the same time, when he had a little more money 
than usual, he paid his tailor three hundred florins in advance. 
Often he was compelled to write music to meet his daily neces- 
sities ; and one of the passages of his diary is entitled " Four 
Evil Days," during which he dined on a simple roll of bread 
and a glass of water. JSeed we add to all these the case of 
Adam Smith, who taught the nations economy, but could not 
manage the economy of his own house 1 or that of Goldsmith, 
whose essays teem with the shrewdest and most exquisite sense, 
but who never knew the value of a dollar ; who, though receiv- 
ing the largest sums for his writings, had always his daily bread 
to earn ; who, when he sought to take orders, attempted to 
dazzle his bishop by a pair of scarlet breeches ; and of whom 
Johnson said that no man was wiser when he had a pen in his 
hand, or more foolish when he had not 1 

This tact, or worldly knowledge, the importance of which we 
have so emphasized, is rather a negative than a positive quality ; 
why, then, it may be asked, should it be deemed so vital 1 We 
answer, simply because its influence, though negative, is felt at 
every turn and in every sphere of life. It is like the indispen- 
sable oil of machinery, which is a very small thing per se, 
but without which the engine ceases to work smoothly, if it 
works at all. Practical knowledge will not, of itself, raise a 
man to the Presidency ; but, for want of it, many a man has 
failed of that and other elevations. Without it, the best run- 
ner, straining for the prize, finds himself suddenly tripped up, 
and lying on his back in the midst of the race. Without it, 
the shrewdest merchant will find his goods lying in unsold 
piles upon his shelves. Without it, the acutest theologian will 



124 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

live and die in an obscure village, and the subtlest legal acumen 
will never adorn the bench. The man who lacks it may be a 
great thinker, or a great worker. He may be an acute reasoner, 
and an eloquent speaker. He may be capable of writing a pro- 
found treatise on the origin of evil, and may be able in meta- 
physics to distinguish between the " me " and the " non-me " 
with more than Hermaic subtlety. He may be able to out- dive 
Heyne in Latin, and in Greek to excite to jealousy the shades 
of Porson and Parr. And yet, for all this, he fails to get on. 
" There is a hitch, a stand-still, a mysterious want somewhere. 
Little impalpable trifles weave themselves into a web which 
holds him back. The fact is, he is not sufficiently in accord 
with his surroundings. He has never fairly broken the crust 
of individuality in which he is encased. He has never seen 
the importance of adjusting his scale of weights and measures 
to imperial standards. In a word, he is not a man of the 
world." 

But, it may be asked, what is this practical wisdom, which is 
so vital to success, — the want of which makes all other quali- 
ties, even the most brilliant, comparatively useless 1 In what 
does it consist 1 We answer, that it is more easy to describe 
it by negatives than by positives, — to tell what it is not than 
to tell precisely what it is. An English writer * truly says 
that " at one end it runs up into the art of governing ; at the 
other it descends to that of merely pleasing. It is as indispen- 
sable to the Premier in Parliament as to the Foreign-office 
clerk in the salons. But between these poles — between aims 
the loftiest and most trivial — is the proper and legitimate 
sphere for the exercise of knowledge of the world. A man may 
be said to possess it, when he exhibits practical wisdom in all 
the minor relations of social life. As a guest, as a host, as a na- 
tional creditor, as an income-tax payer, as a railway passenger, as 
the vendor or purchaser of a horse, he has functions and duties 
to perform. The way in which these are discharged makes the 
difference between the social simpleton and the worldling. The 

* The Saturday Review. 



PRACTICAL TALENT. 125 

former will be perpetually coming to grief in one or the other 
of them. If he is entertaining, he will abuse the grandmother 
of the most influential man at his table. If he dines out, he 
will ask for fish twice in spite of the waning proportions of 
the cod, and the indignant glances of the lady of the house. 
.As a contributor to the revenue, he will be always in arrears 
and incurring the terrors of the Somerset House. At a rail- 
way station, he will disturb the equanimity of the porters by 
a fussiness arising from a vague but awful regard of steam- 
power. In all dealings with horse-flesh he will be guided by 
the simple rule of buying in the dearest market, and selling in 
the cheapest. As a letter- writer, he shows characteristic naivete. 
There is a curious infelicity in his style. To a subordinate he 
will write with undue familiarity, or an air of ridiculous as- 
sumption, — to an equal, with a smack of arrogance. The 
oddest rays of comfort will gleam across his letters of condo- 
lence, while his congratulations will partake of a somewhat 
funereal character. In addressing members of those world- 
wide families, he will not be particular as to the ' y ' in Smyth, 
or the ' p ' in Thompson." 

The sum of the matter is, that life is action. Thoughts and 
schemes, while they remain such, will avail you nothing, unless 
you are a Buddhist, bent on amalgamating yourself by medita- 
tion with the ineffable and divine essence. A Boston gentle- 
man, who takes a business view of things, did not untruly 
characterize the whole race of poetic impracticables in a single 
felicitous sentence. Being asked the character of a certain 
transcendentalist, — " 0," said he, " he is one of those men 
who have soarings after the infinite, and divings after the un- 
fathomable, but who never pay cash ! " 

The want of practical talent in men of fine intellectual 
powers has often excited the wonder of the crowd. They are 
astonished that one whose genius has grasped, perhaps, the 
mightiest themes, and shed a flood of light on the path to be 
pursued by others, should be unable to manage his own affairs 
with dexterity. But this is not strange. Deep thinking and 



126 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

practical talents require habits of mind almost entirely dissimi- 
lar. A man who sees limitedly and clearly is both more sure 
of himself, and is more direct in dealing with circumstances 
and with others, than a man with a large horizon of thought, 
whose many-sided capacity embraces an immense extent of ob- 
jects and objections, — just as a horse with blinkers chooses 
his path more surely and is less likely to shy. Besides, it 
must be remembered that energy and self-possession alone, 
without superiority of intellect, suffice to give a man practical 
talent. There is no force in intellectual ability, — mere intel- 
lectual ability, standing, to use a phrase of Burke, " in all the 
nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction." It is 
passion which is the moving, vitalizing power ; and a minimum 
of brains will often achieve more, when fired by a strong will, 
than a vastly larger portion with no energy to set it in motion. 
Practical men cut the knots which they cannot untie, and, ovep 
leaping all logical preliminaries, come at once to a conclusion. 
Men of genius, on the other hand, are tempted to waste time in 
meditating and comparing, when they should act instantaneously 
and with power. They are apt, too, to give unbridled license 
to their imaginations, and, desiring harmonious impossibilities, 
to foresee the difficulties so clearly that action is foregone. 
They have put microscopes to their eyes, and cannot drink for 
fear of the animalcules. In short, they theorize too much. A 
loaf baked is better than a harvest contemplated. An acre in 
Cook County is better than a principality in Utopia. Genius, 
to be practically useful, says the author of Lacon, " must be 
endowed, not only with wings whereby to fly, but with legs 
whereon to stand." Both practical and speculative ability, 
are, no doubt, modifications of mental power ; but one, on that 
account, by no means implies the other, any more than dexter- 
ity in performing a juggler's feats involves the art of reefing a 
sail, though they are both instances of physical skill. 



DECISION. 127 



CHAPTEE X. 

DECISION. 

" Lose this day loitering, — 't will be the same story 
To-morrow, and the next more dilatory ; 
The indecision brings its own delays, 
And days are lost lamenting over days. 
Are you in earnest ? Seize this very minute, 
"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. 
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, — 
Begin, and then the work will be completed." 
He (the upright student) keeps his purpose, — and whatever he has 
resolved to do, that he does, were it only because he has resolved to do it. — 
Fichte. 

But so it is with many men : " We long for the merchandise, yet would 
fain keep the price," and so stand chaffering with fate in vexatious alterca- 
tion till the night comes and our fair is over. — Caeltle. 
"There is nothing so imprudent as excessive prudence." 

IT is but a truism to say that there can be no success in life 
without decision of character. In spite of De Quincey's 
protest, we believe that John Foster, in his celebrated essay, 
did not exaggerate the importance of that quality, though we 
admit that it is not strictly a moral power, and that the most 
inexorable decision is much more closely connected with physi- 
cal differences of temperament than with any superiority of 
mind. Indeed, Foster himself expresses the opinion that, could 
the histories of all the persons remarkable for decisive charac- 
ter be known, it would be found that the majority of them 
have possessed great constitutional firmness. By this is not 
meant an exemption from disease and pain, nor any certain 
measure of mechanical strength, but a tone of vigor, the 
opposite to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and endur- 
ance. Decision of mind, like vigor of body, is a gift of God. 



128 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

It cannot be created by human effort. It can only be culti- 
vated. It has been truly said that, as resolution, or strength 
of will, is a primary power in man, there is no higher power 
which can give birth to it, for this higher power would neces- 
sarily involve the existence of the lower that was to be pro- 
duced. But every man has the germ of this quality, which 
can be cultivated by favorable circumstances and motives pre- 
sented to the mind ; and, by method and order in the prosecu- 
tion of his duties or tasks, he may by habit greatly augment 
his will-power, or beget a frame of mind so nearly resembling 
resolution that it would be difficult to distinguish between the 
two. Let no one despair because he has often broken his reso- 
lutions. Eichte has well observed that nothing is more destruc- 
tive of character than for a man to lose all faith in his own 
resolutions, because he has so often determined, and again deter- 
mined, to do that which, nevertheless, he has never done. Here, 
as elsewhere, " the stature of the perfect man " is attained only 
by slow gradations of travail, study, effort, and patience. The 
whole armor cannot be put on at once. The first victory will 
render the succeeding one easier, until the very combat will be 
desired for the luxury of certain conquest. "The angel of 
martyrdom is brother to the angel of victory." 

But, whether inborn or acquired, decision is a quality vitally 
important to him who would get on in the world. Even brains 
are secondary in importance to will. The intellect is but the 
half of a man ; the will is the driving-wheel, the spring of 
motive power. A vacillating man, no matter what his abilities, 
is invariably pushed aside in the race of life by the man of 
determined will. It is he who resolves to succeed, and who at 
every fresh rebuff begins resolutely again, that reaches the goal. 
The shores of fortune are covered with the stranded wrecks of 
men of brilliant ability, but who have wanted courage, faith, 
and decision, and have therefore perished in sight of more 
resolute but less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making 
port. Hundreds of men go to their graves in obscurity, who 
have been obscure only because they lacked the pluck to make 



DECISION. 129 

a first effort ; and who, could they only have resolved to begin, 
would have astonished the world by their achievements and 
successes. The fact is, as Sydney Smith has well said, " that, 
in order to do anything in this world that is worth doing, we 
must not stand shivering on the bank, and thinking of the cold 
and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as 
we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating and ad- 
justing nice chances ; it did all very well before the Flood, 
when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publi- 
cation for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to see its 
success for six or seven centuries afterwards ; but at present a 
man waits, and doubts, and hesitates, and consults his brother, 
and his uncle, and his first-cousins, and his particular friends, 
till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, — that 
he has lost so much time in consulting first-cousins and par- 
ticular friends, that he has no more time left to follow their 
advice." The world was not made for slow, squeamish, fastid- 
ious men, but for those who act instantaneously and with power. 
Obstacles and perplexities every man must meet, and he must 
either promptly conquer them, or they will conquer him. It is 
rarely that the comparative good and evil of different modes of 
action are equally balanced ; and he who would do anything to 
the purpose in this world should perceive the slightest inclina- 
tion of the beam with an eagle's glance. It is better to decide 
wrong occasionally, than to be forever wavering and hesitating, 
now veering to this side and then to that, with all the misery 
and disaster that follow from continual doubt. 

It has been truly said that the great moral victories and 
defeats of the world often turn on minutes. Fortune is pro- 
verbially a fickle jade, and there is nothing like promptness of 
action, — the timing of things at the lucky moment, — to force 
her to surrender her favors. Crises come, the seizing of which 
is triumph, the neglect of which is ruin. This is particularly 
true on the field of battle. Nearly every battle turns on one or 
two rapid movements executed amid the whirl of smoke and 
thunder of guns that jar the 6olid globe. It was at such mo- 

i 



130 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

ments that the genius of Napoleon shone forth with the highest 
lustre. His mind acted like the lightning, and never with 
more promptness and precision than in moments of the greatest 
confusion and danger. What confounded others only stimu- 
lated him. He used to say that one of the principal requisites 
of a general is an accurate calculation of time ; for, if your ad- 
versary can bring a powerful force to attack a certain post ten 
minutes sooner than you can bring up a sufficient supporting 
force, you are beaten, even though all the rest of your plans be 
the most perfect that can be devised. At Areola he saw that 
the battle was going against him, and at once called up twenty- 
five horsemen, gave them each a trumpet, and made a dashing 
charge that won the victory. So at Montebello he computed 
the distance of the Austrian cavalry, saw that it would require 
a quarter of an hour for them to come up, and in those fifteen 
minutes executed a manoeuvre that saved the day. The reason, 
he said, why he beat the Austrians, was that they did not 
know the value of five minutes. At the celebrated battle of 
Eivoli the day seemed on the point of being decided against 
him. He saw the critical state of affairs, and instantly formed 
his resolution. He despatched a flag to the Austrian head- 
quarters, with proposals for an armistice. Napoleon seized the 
precious moments, and, while amusing the enemy with mock 
negotiations, rearranged his line of battle, changed his front, 
and, in a few moments, was ready to renounce the farce of dis- 
cussion for the stern arbitrament of arms. The splendid vic- 
tory of Eivoli was the result. 

Another signal example of this promptness of decision occurs 
at an earlier date in Napoleon's career. He had made his won- 
drous burst into Northern Italy, and had driven the Austrian 
troops before him like sheep. Hardly anything was wanting 
to the conquest of Lombardy but the taking of Mantua, to 
which he devoted 10,000 of his troops. At this juncture he 
heard of the coming of a new Austrian army, consisting of 
60,000 men, while he had in all but 40,000. By marching 
quickly along the banks of the Lake of Garda they cut off his 



DECISION. 131 

retreat to Milan, and thus greatly endangered his position; 
but, as the Austrians came on both sides of the lake, 20,000 
on the one and 40,000 on the other, Napoleon determined to 
take a position at the end of the lake, so as to be between the 
two parties when they should attempt to unite. " By rapidly 
forming a main mass," says the historian, M. Thiers, "the 
French might overpower the 20,000 who had turned the lake, 
and immediately after return to the 40,000 who had defiled 
between the lake and the Adige. But, to occupy the extrem- 
ity of the lake, it was necessary to call in all the troops from 
the Lower Adige and the Lower Mincio; Angerau must be 
withdrawn from Legnago, and Serrurier from Mantua, for so 
extensive a line was no longer tenable. This involved a great 
sacrifice, for Mantua had been besieged during two months, a 
considerable battering-train had been transported before it, the 
fortress was on the point of capitulating, and by allowing it to 
be revictualled, the fruits of these vigorous efforts, an almost 
assured prey, would escape his grasp. Napoleon, however, did 
not hesitate. Between two important objects he had the sa- 
gacity to seize the most important and sacrifice to it the other, 
— a simple resolution in itself, but one which displays not only 
the great captain, but the great man. It is not in war merely ; 
it occurs in politics, and in all the situations of life, that men 
encounter two objects, and, aiming to compass both, fail in 
each. Bonaparte possessed that rare and decisive vigor which 
prompts at once the choice and the sacrifice. Had he persisted 
in guarding the whole course of the Mincio, from the extremity 
of the Lake of Garda to Mantua, he would have been pierced. 
By concentrating on Mantua to cover it, he would have had 
70,000 men to cope with at the same time, — 60,000 in front 
and 10,000 in the rear. He sacrificed Mantua, and concen- 
trated at the point of the Lake of Garda." The results of this 
rapid decision were a brilliant reward of the masterly genius he 
had displayed. Meeting first the corps of 20,000 under Quas- 
danovich, he drove back its vanguard ; whereupon the Austrian 
general, surprised to find everywhere imposing masses of the 



132 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

French, was alarmed, and resolved to halt till he should hear 
of the other corps under his commander, Wurmser. Guessing 
what was passing in Quasdanovich's mind, Napoleon contented 
himself with having checked his march, and turned to meet 
the other "body. Of this corps a large portion had passed on 
with Wurmser to Mantua, leaving 20,000 behind, under Baya- 
litsch. This army advanced with widespread wings to en- 
velop the French ; but Napoleon pierced its weakened centre, 
and compelled it to retreat. The French pursued, greatly dam- 
aging it ; other battles followed ; and in six days from the be- 
ginning of hostilities the Austrian generals were again flying 
back to the Tyrol, having lost the kingdom of Lombardy and 
20,000 men. 

At the close of his career the hero of Austerlitz and Ma- 
rengo was guilty of the same mistake of which he used to 
accuse the Austrians ; he ceased to recognize the value of min- 
utes. "Waterloo was lost to him, mainly because the swiftness 
of decision and promptness of action which had characterized 
his previous career were wanting, — because he wasted precious 
hours before, on, and after the day of Ligny, and on the morn- 
ing of Waterloo, when he should have fallen on the enemy like 
a thunderbolt. Wellington, on the other hand, who never lost 
a battle, manifested the same decisiveness and promptitude in 
the field to the very end of his military life. Just before 
the great battle in which he won his most brilliant laurels, Sir 
Sydney Smith, being told that the Duke had decided to keep his 
position at all hazards, exclaimed, "O, if the Duke has said 
that, of course t' other fellow must give way." An amusing illus- 
tration of the Duke's characteristic qualities is the reply which 
he is said to have made when in danger of shipwreck. It was 
bedtime, when the captain of the vessel, in great affright, came 
to him and said, " It will soon be all over with us." " Very 
well," was the reply, " then I shall not take off my boots." 

The superiority which decision combined with pluck gives 
to a few men over a great number was vividly illustrated by 
an incident that occurred a few years ago in the town of Lynn, 



DECISION. 133 

Massachusetts. During a public disturbance, twenty of the 
Boston police cowed and kept in subjection a crowd. of nearly 
three thousand persons. The mob was led by reckless men, 
who appeared determined to do violence, particularly to the 
policemen. With loud outcries, and armed with bricks, clubs, 
and other weapons, the rioters advanced to the attack, expect- 
ing to overwhelm the little squad of their opponents at the 
first onset. Instead of making them quail, however, the only 
effect upon the latter was to make them more determined to 
maintain the public peace, which they had been sworn in and 
delegated to perform. They passed fearlessly into the heat and 
centre of the riotous demonstration, faced the thickest of the 
shower of missiles, and seized the ringleaders with a grip and 
valor that sent a shock of trepidation into the rebellious throng. 
The whole thing was accomplished in the briefest time, and 
for the reason that the police went straight to the point, — took 
the citadel at the start. It was a triumph of promptness and 
pluck over numbers, — of a few determined men over a half- 
hesitating rabble. 

Of course, there are occasions when caution and delay are 
necessary, — when to act without long and anxious deliberation 
would be madness. All wisdom is a system of balances. It 
is well enough to be careful and wary up to a certain point ; 
but beyond that a hesitating policy is as ruinous as downright 
rashness. Thousands of men owe their failures in life simply 
to procrastination. Brobdingnag in words, and Lilliput in acts, 
they scrupulously follow Fox's advice, " Never do to-day what, 
by any possibility, can be put off till to-morrow." They never 
know their own minds, but, like Coleridge, debate with them- 
selves the whole journey which side of the road they will take, 
and meanwhile keep winding from one to the other. Many a 
business man has made his fortune by promptly deciding at 
some nice juncture to expose himself to a considerable risk. 
To know when to sacrifice a little to win a great deal, when 
to abandon important minor objects to accomplish a great end, 
exacts the soundest judgment, and the decision has some- 



134 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

times to be made in a moment's thought. There are two 
moments, says Browning, in a diver's life (and the same ap- 
plies to every man's career) : — 

" One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge ; 
* One when, a prince, he rises with his pearl." 

There are crises in almost every man's life, when the Rubicon 
must be passed, when the Wellington of the mart or forum 
must not wait for Blucher to come up, but must himself arise 
and charge. The battle of life is constantly presenting new 
phases, and he only can expect to be victorious who is ready 
to show, a new front as often as the situation shows a new 
peril. A sword that breaks in the very crisis of a duel, a horse 
killed by a flash of lightning in the moment of collision with 
the enemy, a bridge carried away by a freshet at the instant 
of a commencing retreat, are events which are paralleled in 
every man's business career, and call for instant decision. They 
confound and paralyze the feeble mind, but rouse a terrific 
reaction of haughty self-assertion in that order of spirits which 
matches and measures itself against difficulty and danger. It 
is told of Pellissier, the hero of the Crimea, that, getting angry 
one morning with a sub-officer of a cavalry regiment, he cut 
him across the face with a whip. The man drew a pistol and 
attempted to explode it in the face of his chief ; but it missed 
fire. Uttering a fearful oath, but otherwise calm, " Fellow ! " 
said the grim chief of the Zouaves, " I order you a three days' 
arrest, for not having your arms in better order." 

There is hardly any calling in which promptness, decision, or 
presence of mind is not sometimes imperiously needed. A 
lawyer often needs to have all his wits about him ; a sudden 
turn in a case, the introduction of unexpected testimony, an 
unlooked-for ruling by the judge, an unsuspected line of argu- 
ment taken by the opposing counsel, may necessitate a com- 
plete " change of base," and demand an instant decision as to 
the policy to be adopted. The physician, too, must have his 
mind at his fingers' ends. He must grow cooler in the degree 
that his patient gets scared. It matters not with how much 



DECISION. 135 

medical learning his head is crammed ; it is useless unless in a 
critical moment it is instantly available. Presence of mind is 
especially needed by all men who have occasion to face sudden 
danger. Dr. John Brown, in speaking of this quality, well 
observes : " It is a curious condition of mind that this requires. 
It is like sleeping with your pistol under your pillow, and the 
pistol on full cock ; a moment lost, and all may be lost. There 
is the very nick of time. Men, when they have done some 
signal feat of presence of mind, if asked how they did it, do 
not very well know, — they just did it. It was in fact done, 
and then thought of ; not thought of and then done, in which 
case it would likely never have been done at all. It is one of 
the highest powers of mind thus to act ; it is done by an 
acquired instinct." 

It is the lack of this promptness so characteristic of the 
gladiatorial intellect — of this readiness to meet every attack 
of ill-fortune with counter resources of evasion — which causes 
so many defeats in life. There is a race of narrow wits that 
never get rich for want of courage. Their understanding is of 
that halting, balancing kind, which gives a man just enough 
light to see difficulties and start doubts, but not enough to 
surmount the one or to remove the other. They do not know 
what force of character means. They seem to have no back- 
bone, but only the mockery of a vertebral column, made of 
india-rubber, equally pliant in all directions. They come and 
go like shadows, speak like women, sandwich their sentences 
with apologies, are overtaken by events while still irresolute, 
and let the tide ebb before they feebly push off. Always 
brooding over their plans, but never executing them, they 
remind one of Voltaire's sarcasm upon La Harpe, whom he 
called an oven that was always heating up, but which never 
cooked anything. They never get ahead an inch, because they 
are always hugging some coward maxim, which they can only 
interpret literally. " JS"ever change a certainty for an uncer- 
tainty," "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," are 
their favorite saws ; and very good ones they are, too, but not 



136 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

to be followed too slavishly. Of what use is it " to be sawing 
about a set of maxims to which there is a complete set of 
antagonist maxims " 1 Proverbs, it has been well said, should 
be sold in pairs, a single one being but a half-truth. 

It is hardly possible to conceive of a more unhappy man 
than one afflicted with this infirmity. It has been remarked 
that there are persons who lack decision to such a degree that 
they seem never to have made up their minds which leg to 
stand upon, — who deliberate in an agony of choice, when not a 
grain's weight depends on the decision, on the question what 
road to walk on, what chair to sit down upon, what bundle of 
hay to munch first. " A man without decision," says John 
Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since, if he 
dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about 
as powerful, you would have supposed, as a spider, may make 
a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next moment, and 
contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determinations by 
which he was to have proved the independence of his under- 
standing and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture 
of him ; and one thing after another vindicates its right to 
him, by arresting him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs 
and chips, floating near the edge of a river, are intercepted by 
every weed and whirled in every little eddy. Having con- 
cluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accomplish it — 
if the hundred diversities of feeling which may come within 
the week will let him. His character precluding all foresight 
of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and direction 
his views and actions are destined to take to-morrow ; as a 
farmer has often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings 
are at the disposal of its winds and clouds." 

One of the great defects in the character of Charles V., Em- 
peror of Germany, was his slowness of decision in the cabinet 
and in the field. Had he been prompt and decisive, he might 
have crushed the Reformation in the bud. Coligni, one of the 
champions of Protestantism in Prance, who perished in the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, had a similar defect. A braver 



DECISION. 137 

man never drew the sword ; but in critical moments he failed 
to reap the natural fruits of his valor by his hesitation and 
delay. 

Literary men are more apt to lack decision than men who 
have to deal with practical matters. A melancholy example of 
this is furnished by the life of Sir James Mackintosh, whom 
Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, in his "Historical Characters," 
terms " The Man of Promise." The career of Sir James was a 
perpetual struggle between that which he desired to be and 
that for which his talents fitted him. At the University of 
Aberdeen he was alike remarkable for his zeal in politics and 
his love for metaphysics, — that is, for his alternate coquetry 
between an active and a meditative life. At Edinburgh, also, 
where he went to study medicine, it was the same thing. 
Spending his mornings in poetical lucubrations, his evenings in 
making speeches at a " spouting " club, he gave little attention 
to the study of medicine till absolute necessity compelled him. 
He then applied himself with a start to that which he was 
obliged to know ; but his diligence was not of that resolute 
and steady kind which insures success as the consequence of 
a certain period of application ; and, after rushing into the 
novelties of " The Brunonian System," which promised a 
knowledge of medicine with little labor, and then rushing back 
again, he tried to establish himself as a medical practitioner at 
Salisbury and at Weymouth in England, but, getting no 
patients, retired, disgusted and wearied, to Brussels. He next 
dabbled in politics ; wrote the famous pamphlet, " Vindiciae 
Gallicae," in reply to Burke ; delivered soon after at Lincoln's 
Inn a course of learned and eloquent lectures on Public Law, 
which were received with great enthusiasm ; defended M. 
Peltier in a speech at the bar, which was read with admiration 
not only in England, but on the Continent, and, though he 
lost his cause, led him to be considered no less promising as a 
pleader than, after the " Vindiciae Gallicse," he had been con- 
sidered as a pamphleteer ; became Recorder of Bombay ; re- 
turned to England, and, feeling that " it was time to be some- 



138 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

thing decided," resolved " to exert himself to the utmost " if 
he could get a seat in Parliament ; entered the House of Com- 
mons, and made several remarkable speeches ; accepted a pro- 
fessorship at the same time in Haileybury College, unable 
" either to commit himself to the great stream of public life, or 
to avoid lingering on its shores " ; planned a great historical 
work, which, like his projected work on Morals, was " always 
to be projected " ; and, at length, within a few yards of the 
grave, galled by the thought that the season for action was 
almost passed, and he had accomplished nothing worthy of his 
great powers, made a start, and crowded into the last few years 
of his life the most ambitious of his works, — works all, how- 
ever, of a third-rate character, neither worthy of his abilities 
nor justifying even in a moderate degree the expectations of 
his friends. The fatal defect in his character was lack of 
decision, of concentration, of power to choose some one 
object to be accomplished, and to sacrifice to its attainment all 
interfering inclinations. " No man," says Sir Henry L. Bulwer, 
"doing so little, ever went through a long life continually 
creating the belief that he would ultimately do so much." He 
passed from Burke to Fox in half an hour, and remained weeks 
in determining whether he should employ " usefulness" or 
" utility " in some particular composition. From the beginning 
of his life to its close he ever remained the man of promise ; 
until, amidst hopes which his vast and various information, his 
wonderful memory, his copious elocution, and his transitory 
fits of energy still nourished, he died, in the sixty-seventh 
year of his age, universally admired and regretted, though 
without a high reputation for any one thing, or the ardent 
attachment of any particular set of persons. 

Let every man who would avoid a life so abortive as this 
decide early what he wishes, and for what his talents fit him ; 
and having fixed upon an object to be attained, let him give 
his whole soul to its attainment, without swerving to the right 
or the left. " I respect the man," says Goethe, " who knows 
distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all the mischief 



DECISION. 139 

in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently 
understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a 
tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would 
be necessary to erect a hut." 

Not only is decision necessary, but promptness also, without 
which decision loses half its value. "Is Philip at Paris'?" 
asked Charles V., after his son, the King of Spain, had gained 
the decisive victory over the French at Quentin. He estimated 
Philip's temper by his own. When Ledyard was asked by the 
African Association when he would be ready to start for Africa, 
he replied, " To-morrow morning." A similar answer was 
made by Sir Colin Campbell, when asked when he would set 
out to lead the British army to India. It was the promptness 
of Blucher that won for him the cognomen of " Marshal For- 
ward " throughout the Prussian army. Again, besides prompt- 
ness, tenacity of decision is indispensable to him who would 
make his mark in the world, or achieve any rare success. All 
the men whose names have been blazoned on the scroll of 
fame have been distinguished by their firm adherence to their 
purposes, by the nescit vox missa reverti, which has made their 
spoken word like an oath. When a certain commissary- general 
complained to the Duke of Wellington that Sir Thomas Picton 
had declared that he would hang him if the rations for that 
general's division were not forthcoming at a certain hour, the 
Duke replied, " Ah ! did he go so far as that 1 Did he say he 'd 
hang you % " " Yes, my lord." " Well, if General Picton said 
so, I have no doubt he will keep his word; you 'd better get up 
the rations in time." When a man of iron will is thus known 
to be so tenacious in his adherence to his resolution that, once 
declared, it is like a decree of fate, there is no limit to the good 
or bad results he may accomplish. Such a will draws men and 
things after it as a boat does the drift in its wake. Men feel 
that to oppose its possessor would be as futile as 

" To wound the loud winds, or, with bemocked-at stabs, 
To kill the still closing waters ." 

Some forty years ago murder was so rife in Havana that it, 



140 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

seemed literally to be cultivated as one of the fine arts, to use 
De Quincey's phrase ; and the city, if less libidinous, was 
probably more blood-stained than Sodom or Gomorrah. Yet, 
in a short time, by the vigor and decision of one man, this 
hideous state of things was entirely changed ; and through 
Havana then, as through England under Alfred, or through 
Geneva now, the most gently nurtured woman could walk at 
midnight with a female attendant, unscared and unharmed. 
One night a murder was committed, and Tacon, the Chief of 
Police, heard in the morning that the perpetrator was still at 
large. He summoned the prefect of the department in which 
the crime was committed. " How is this, sir 1 a man murdered 
at midnight, and the murderer not yet arrested 1 " " May it 
please your Excellency, it is impossible. We do not even 
know who it is." Tacon saw the officer was lying. " Hark 
you, sir. Bring me this murderer before night, or I '11 garrote 
you to-morrow morning." The officer knew his man, and the 
assassin was forthcoming. 



MANNER. 141 



CHAPTEE XI 



MANNER. 



Maimers makyth man. — William of Wykeham. 

Prepare yourselves for the world as the athletse used to do for their 
exercises ; oil your mind and your maimers to give them the necessary sup- 
pleness and flexibility ; strength alone will not do. — Chesterfield. 
" The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 
His want in forms, for fashion's sake, 
Will let his coltish nature break 
At seasons through the gilded pale ." 
The courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike 
deepest to the grateful and appreciating heart. It is the picayune compli- 
ments which are the most appreciated ; far more than the double ones which 
we sometimes pay. — Henry Clay. 

AMONG the qualities of mind and heart which conduce to 
worldly success, there is no one the importance of which 
is more real, yet which is so generally underrated at this day by 
the young, as courtesy, — that feeling of kindness, of love for 
our fellows, which expresses itself in pleasing manners. Owing 
to that spirit of self-reliance and self-assertion, and that con- 
tempt for the forms and conventionalities of life, which our 
young men are trained to cherish, they are too apt to despise 
those delicate attentions, those nameless and exquisite tender- 
nesses of thought and manner, that mark the true gentle- 
man. Yet history is crowded with examples showing that, as 
in literature, it is the delicate, indefinable charm of style, not 
the thought, which makes a work immortal, — as a dull actor 
makes Shakespeare's grandest passages flat and unprofitable, 
while a Kean enables you to read them " by flashes of light- 
ning," — so it is the bearing of a man toward his fellows 
which oftentimes, more than any other circumstance, promotes 
or obstructs his advancement in life. We may complain, if 



142 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

we will, that our fellow-men care more for form than substance, 
for the superficies than the solid contents of a man ; but the 
fact remains, and it is the clew to many of the seeming anoma- 
lies and freaks of fortune which surprise us in the matter of 
worldly prosperity. 

2^o doubt there are a few men who can look beyond the 
husk or shell of a fellow-being — his angularities, awkwardness, 
or eccentricity — to the hidden qualities within; who can discern 
the diamond, however incrusted ; but the majority are neither 
so sharp-eyed nor so tolerant, and judge a person by his appear- 
ance and demeanor more than by his substantial character. 
Daily experience shows that civility is not only one of the 
essentials of high success, but that it is almost a fortune of itself, 
and that he who has this quality in perfection, though a block- 
head, is almost sure to get on where, without it, even men of 
high ability fail. " Give a boy address and accomplishments," 
says Emerson, " and you give him the mastery of palaces and 
fortunes wherever he goes ; he has not the trouble of earning 
or owning them ; they solicit him to enter and possess." 
Among strangers a good manner is the best letter of recom- 
mendation ; for a great deal depends upon first impressions, 
and these are favorable or unfavorable according to a man's 
bearing, as he is polite or awkward, shy or self-possessed. 
"While coarseness and gruffness lock doors and close hearts, 
courtesy, refinement, and gentleness are an " open sesame " at 
which bolts fly back and doors swing open. The rude, boorish 
man, even though well meaning, is avoided by all. Even 
virtue itself is offensive when coupled with an offensive man- 
ner. Hawthorne, himself a shy man, used to say : " God may 
forgive sins, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or 
earth." Manners, in fact, are minor morals, and a rude man 
is generally assumed to be a bad man. "You had better," 
wrote Chesterfield to his son, " return a dropped fan genteelly 
than give a thousand pounds awkwardly ; and you had better 
refuse a favor gracefully than grant it clumsily. . . . All your 
Greek can never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from 



MANNER. 143 

envoy to ambassador ; but your address, your air, your manner, 
if good, may." 

What a man says or does is often an uncertain test of what 
he is. It is the way in which he says or does it that furnishes 
the best index of his character. It is by the incidental ex- 
pression given to his thoughts and feelings by his looks, tones, 
and gestures, rather than by his deeds or words, that we prefer 
to judge him, for the simple reason that the former are invol- 
untary. One may do certain deeds from design, or repeat cer- 
tain professions by rote ; honeyed words may mask feelings of 
hate, and kindly acts may be performed expressly to veil sinister 
ends ; but the " manner of the man " is not so easily controlled. 
The mode in which a kindness is done often affects us more 
than the deed itself. The act itself may have been prompted 
by one of many questionable motives, as vanity, pride, or inter- 
est ; the warmth or coldness with which the person who has doDe 
it asks you how you do, or grasps your hand, is less likely to 
deceive. The manner of doing anything, it has been truly 
said, is " that which marks the degree and force of our internal 
impression ; it emanates most directly from our immediate or 
habitual feelings ; it is that which stamps its life and character 
on any action ; the rest may be performed by an automaton." 
A favor may be conferred so grudgingly as to prevent any feel- 
ing of obligation, or it may be refused so courteously as to 
awaken more kindly feelings than if it had been ungraciously 
granted. 

Hazlitt observes truly that an author's style is not less a cri- 
terion of his understanding than his sentiments. " The same 
story told by two different persons shall, from the difference 
of the manner, either set the table in a roar, or not relax a fea- 
ture in the whole company. . . . One of the most pleasant and 
least tiresome of our acquaintance is a humorist, who has three 
or four quaint witticisms and proverbial phrases, which he 
always repeats over and over, so that you feel the same amuse- 
ment with less effort than if he had startled his hearers with a 
succession of original conceits. Another friend of ours, who 



144 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

never fails to give vent to one or two real jeux-oVesprit every 
time you meet him, from the pain with which he is delivered 
of them, and the uneasiness he seems to suffer all the rest of 
the time, makes a much more interesting than comfortable com- 
panion. If you see a person in pain for himself, it naturally 
puts you in pain for him. The art of pleasing consists in being 
pleased. To be amiable is to be satisfied with one's self and 
others." 

The same principle is vividly illustrated by an anecdote told 
by Henry "Ward Beecher in a recent lecture. In the early 
Abolition days two men went out preaching, one an old Quaker 
and another a young man full of fire. When the Quaker lec- 
tured, everything ran along very smoothly, and he carried the 
audience with him. When the young man lectured, there was 
a row, and stones, and eggs. It became so noticeable, that the 
young man spoke to the Quaker about it. He said, " Friend, 
you and I are on the same mission, and preach the same things ; 
and how is it that while you are received cordially, I get noth- 
ing but abuse 1 " The Quaker replied, " I will tell thee. Thee 
says, ' If you do so and so, you shall be punished/ and I say, 
' My friends, if you will not do so and so, you shall not be pun- 
ished.' " They both said the same thing, but there was a 
great deal of difference in the way they said it. 

Politeness has been defined as benevolence in small things. 
A true gentleman is recognized by his regard for the rights and 
feelings of others, even in matters the most trivial. He re- 
spects the individuality of others, just as he wishes others to 
respect his own. In society he is quiet, easy, unobtrusive ; 
putting on no airs, nor hinting by word or manner that he 
deems himself better, wiser, or richer than any one about him. 
He is never " stuck up," nor looks down upon others because 
they have not titles, honors, or social position equal to his own. 
He never boasts of his achievements, or angles for compliments 
by affecting to underrate what he has done. He prefers to act, 
rather than to talk ; to be, rather than to seem ; and, above all 
things, is distinguished by his deep insight and sympathy, 



« MANNER. 145 

his quick perception of, and prompt attention to, those little 
and apparently insignificant things that may cause pleasure or 
pain to others. In giving his opinions he does not dogmatize ; 
he listens patiently and respectfully to other men, and, if com- 
pelled to dissent from their opinions, acknowledges his falli- 
bility and asserts his own views in such a manner as to 
command the respect of all who hear him. Frankness and 
cordiality mark all his intercourse with his fellows, and, how- 
ever high his station, the humblest man feels instantly at ease 
in his presence. 

Wordsworth has well expressed one of the cardinal laws of 
politeness in the admonition, — 

" Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 
With sorrow to the meanest tiling that feels." 

One of the ways in which this rule is most frequently violated 
is by saying witty things at others' expense. Many a man 
sacrifices his worldly success to his love of jesting. There are 
persons who would rather lose a life-long friend than their 
joke. But friends are not so plentiful that any man can afford 
to lose one for a moment's gratification, nor even for a whole 
day of conversational triumphs. It has been wisely said that 
spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in 
lif e. Dr. Johnson — who, unfortunately, violated his own pre- 
cept, and to whom one is tempted to say, with Sir Thomas 
Browne, "Since thou so hotly disclaimest the Devil, be not 
thyself guilty of diabolism" — said on a certain occasion: 
" Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to 
act one ; no more right to say a rude thing to another than 
to knock him down." One of the redeeming points in Sheri- 
dan's character was that, though thriftless and intemperate, 
he wounded no man's feelings by his jests : — 

" His wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, 
Never carried a heart-stain away on its blade." 

It is easy to depreciate these gentlemanly qualities as trifles ; 
but trifles, it must be remembered, make up the aggregate of 



146 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

human life. It is not so often the great acts of others that 
we treasure up and remember, as the petty incivilities, slight 
neglects, microscopic rudenesses, of which men are guilty 
without thought, or from lack of insight or sympathy. " A 
beautiful form," says the shrewdest of American essayists, " is 
better than a beautiful face, and a beautiful behavior is better 
than a beautiful form ; it gives a higher pleasure than statues 
or pictures ; it is the finest of the fine arts." There is no 
society where smiles, pleasant looks, animal spirits, are not 
welcomed ; where they are not of more importance than sallies 
of wit or refinements of understanding. The little courtesies 
which form the small change of life may appear, separately, of 
little moment, but, like the spare minutes, or the penny a day, 
which amount to so enormous sums in a lifetime, they owe 
their importance to repetition and accumulation. The man 
who thrives in any calling is not always the shrewdest or most 
laborious man, but he is almost invariably one who has shown 
a willingness to please and to be pleased, who has responded 
to the advances of others, not now and then, with conscious 
effort, but heartily, through nature and habit, while his rival 
has sniffed and frowned and snubbed away every helping 
hand. 

It is said of the Duke of Marlborough that his charming 
manners often changed an enemy into a friend, and that to be 
denied a favor by him was more pleasing than to receive one 
from another man. It was these personal graces that made 
him both rich and great, for, though he had nothing shining 
in his genius, and, according to Chesterfield, was eminently 
illiterate, — "wrote bad English, and spelt it worse," — yet 
his figure was beautiful, and his manner irresistible by man or 
woman. It was this which, when he was Ensign of the Guards, 
charmed the Duchess of Cleveland, the favorite of Charles II., 
who gave him five thousand pounds, with which he laid the 
foundation of his subsequent fortune. His address was so 
exquisitely fascinating as to dissolve fierce jealousies and ani- 
mosities, lull suspicion, and beguile the subtlest diplomacy of 



MANNER 147 

its arts. His fascinating smile and winning tongue, equally 
with his sharp sword, swayed the destinies of empires. Be- 
fore the bland, soft-spoken commander, " grim-visaged war," 
in the person of Charles XII. of Sweden, " smoothed his 
wrinkled front " ; and the fiery warrior-king, at his appeal, 
bade adieu to the grand and importunate suitor for his alliance, 
Louis XIY., whom it was his great mission to defeat and 
humble. It was by the same charm of manner that he was 
able so long to keep together the members of the grand alli- 
ance against France, and direct them, in spite of their clashing 
interests, their jealousies, and their perpetual dissensions, to 
the main objects of the war. 

It is said that bees will not sting a person whose skin is 
smeared with honey. The gracious manners of Charles James 
Fox preserved him from personal dislike even when he had 
gambled away his last dollar, and, politically, was the most 
unpopular man in England. A charming manner not only 
enhances personal beauty, but hides ugliness and makes even 
plainness agreeable. There is hardly any career in which an 
ill-favored countenance is not a stumbling-block at the outset, 
that may never be surmounted. There are people called " un- 
presentable," who have giants to contend with at their first 
start in life. Yet who does not know how much a happy 
manner often does to neutralize the ill effects of forbidding 
looks ] The fascination of the demagogue "Wilkes's maimer 
triumphed over both physical and moral deformity, rendering 
even ugliness agreeable ; and he boasted to Lord Townsend, 
the handsomest man in Great Britain, that, with half an hour's 
start, he would get ahead of his lordship in the affections of 
any woman in the kingdom. The ugliest Frenchman, perhaps, 
that ever lived was Mirabeau ; yet such was the witchery of 
his manner that the belt of no gay Lothario of his day was 
hung with a greater number of bleeding female hearts than 
that of this thunderer of the Tribune, who shook from his 
locks " pestilence and war," and whose looks were so hideous 
that he was compared to " a tiger pitted by the small-pox." 



148 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

The success which Aaron Burr achieved, up to the hour when 
he betrayed his party in 1801, arose not more from his political 
skill and knowledge than from his inimitable address and his 
infinite tact in conversation. 

Is any one ignorant of the charm which a fine manner gives 
to oratory 1 ? Demosthenes, in reiterating the importance of 
" action," is supposed to have meant manner only. How 
many able discourses have been emasculated by a false or 
tasteless delivery ! How many shallow ones have passed for 
deep, how many commonplace ones for eloquent and original, 
on account of a charming intonation ! Chesterfield tells us 
that the Duke of Argyle, though the weakest reasoner, was 
the most impressive speaker he ever heard in his life. He 
ravished his audience, " not by his matter, but by his manner 
of delivering it. I was captivated, like others," continues 
Chesterfield ; " but when I went home and coolly considered 
what he had said, stripped of all those ornaments with which he 
had dressed it, I often found the manner flimsy, the argument 
weak, and I was convinced of the power of those adventitious 
concurring circumstances which it is ignorance of mankind to 
call trifling." D'Aguessau says of Fenelon, that the charm of 
his manner, and a certain indescribable expression, made his" 
hearers fancy that, instead of mastering the sciences he dis- 
coursed upon, he had invented them. Lord Chatham was a 
wonderfully eloquent man, but his manner added to his elo- 
quence. The delivery of Lord Mansfield, the silver-tongued 
Murray, had such ease, grace, and suavity that his bare narra- 
tive of a case was said to be worth any other man's argument. 
The student of English history, as he reads Wilberforce's 
speeches, wonders at his reputation ; but, had he heard them 
from the lips of the orator, delivered in tones full, liquid, and 
penetrating, with the matchless accompaniments of attitude, 
gesture, and expression, he would have found that a dramatic 
delivery can convert even commonplace into brilliant rhetoric. 
Napoleon thought so much of manner that he studied it under 
Talma, the actor, and thought, with the Eomans, that youth 



MANNER 149 

should early be brought into contact with the posture-master 
and the orator. 

Of the necromantic effects which manner may work in legis- 
lative bodies, Lord Chesterfield has given a striking account. 
Being asked to procure the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar 
by England, he introduced into Parliament a bill for that pur- 
pose. " But then," he adds, " my difficulty began. I was to 
bring in this bill, which was necessarily composed of law jargon 
and astronomical calculations, to both of which I am an utter 
stranger. However, it was absolutely necessary to make the 
House of Lords think that I knew something of the matter, 
and also make them believe that they knew something of it 
themselves, which they did not. For my own part, I could 
just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them as 
astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well ; 
so I resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to 
please instead of informing them I was particularly at- 
tentive to the choice of my words, to the harmony and round- 
ness of my periods, to my elocution, to my action. This suc- 
ceeded, and ever will succeed ; they thought I informed, 
because I pleased them ; and many of them said that I had 
made the whole very clear to them, when, God knows, I had 
not even attempted it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the great- 
est share in forming the bill, and who is one of the greatest 
mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterwards 
with infinite knowledge and all the clearness that so intricate 
a matter would admit of ; but as his words, his periods, and 
his utterance were not nearly so good as mine, the preference 
was most unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me." 

Almost every man can recall scores of cases within his knowl- 
edge where pleasing manners have made the fortunes of law- 
yers, doctors, divines, merchants, and, in short, men in every 
walk of life. Raleigh, as we have already remarked, flung 
down his laced coat into the mud for Elizabeth to walk on, 
%nd got for his reward a proud queen's favor. The politician 
who has this advantage easily distances all rival candidates, for 






150 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

every voter he speaks with becomes instantly his friend. The 
very tones in which he asks for a pinch of snuff are often more 
potent than the logic of a Webster or a Clay. Polished man- 
ners have often made scoundrels successful, while the best of 
men by their hardness and coldness have done themselves 
incalculable injury, — the shell being so rough that the world 
could not believe there was a precious kernel within. Civility 
is to a man what beauty is to a woman. It creates an instanta- 
neous impression in his behalf, while the opposite quality excites 
as quick a prejudice against him. It is a real ornament, — the 
most beautiful dress that man or woman can wear, — and worth 
more as a means of winning favor than the finest clothes and 
jewels ever worn. The gruffest man loves to be appreciated ; 
and it is oftener the sweet smile of a woman, which we think 
intended for us alone, than a pair of Juno-like eyes, or " lips 
that seem on roses fed," that bewitches our heart, and lays us 
low at the feet of her whom we afterwards marry. 

It is a common mistake to suppose that persons who are dis- 
tinguished by their sweetness and tenderness of disposition 
must lack force. Some of the examples of courtesy we have 
already given sufficiently refute this, and Faraday, the great 
English physicist, was another striking proof of the contrary. 
He was one of the gentlest of men, yet underneath his sweet- 
ness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. Naturally he 
was excitable and fiery ; but " through high self-discipline," 
says Tyndall, " he had converted his fire into a central glow and 
motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in 
useless passion." It is such men that form the motive forces 
of the world, — persons who, though they quickly flame, and 
burn to a white heat when angry, yet rule their own spirits, 
and utilize all their fire by directing it into professional chan- 
nels. On the other hand, satirical writers and talkers are not 
half so clever as they think themselves, or as they are thought 
to be. " They do winnow the corn, ' t is true, but ' t is to feed 
upon the chaff. It requires some talent and some generosity 
to find out talent and generosity in others ; though nothing but 



MANNER. 151 

self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine 
faults." 

One of the greatest foes to politeness is that shyness which 
is so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Anglo-Saxon, 
wherever found, is naturally stiff, reserved, and uncommunica- 
tive, and carries with him a stock of fluide britannique which, 
as George Sand says, renders him impassive under all circum- 
stances, and as impervious to the atmosphere of the regions he 
traverses as a mouse in the centre of an exhausted receiver. 
Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, is reported to have observed in a 
recent address : " Ask a person at Eome to show you the road, 
and he will always give a civil and polite answer ; but ask any 
person a question for that purpose in this country (Scotland), 
and he will say, ' Follow your nose, and you will find it.' But 
the blame in this country is not with the lower classes. The 
blame is with the upper classes ; and the reason why, in this 
country, the lower classes are not polite, is because the upper 
classes are not polite. I remember how astonished I was the 
first time I was in Paris. I spent the first night with a banker, 
who took me to a pension, or, as we call it, a boarding-house. 
When we got there, a servant-girl came to the door, and the 
banker took off his hat, and bowed to the servant-girl, and 
called her mademoiselle, as if she was a lady. Now the reason 
why the lower classes there are so polite is because the upper 
classes are polite and civil to them." 

Americans are not generally supposed to be timid or bashful ; 
but Hawthorne, the essayist and novelist, who shunned so 
studiously the society of his fellow-beings, showed himself by 
his morbid shyness to be of genuine English descent. He 
makes record in his diary of a day when he resolved to speak 
to no human soul. He went to the village, got his mail at the 
post-office, returned, and triumphantly records the fact that he 
spoke to no man. Is it strange that, with all his genius, the 
author of " The Marble Faun " was a melancholy and essen- 
tially an unhappy man 1 Or is it strange that he lived so long 
in obscurity before his exquisite endowments were recognized 
by the public? 



152 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

It is true that it costs some men a much greater effort to be 
polite than others. It was said with bitter spleen of an Eng- 
lish statesman, " Canning can never be a gentleman for more 
than three hours at a time." It is true, too, that there are 
times in every man's life when to be even coldly courteous 
makes an exhausting draught on one's patience ; but silently to 
devour the many chagrins of life, and to maintain a respectful 
bearing towards others, even under circumstances of vexation 
and trial, is not only a Christian duty, but worldly policy. Dr. 
Valentine Mott said wisely to a graduating class : " Young gen- 
tlemen, have two pockets made, — a large one to hold the 
insults, and a small one to hold the fees." Hundreds of men 
have owed their start in life wholly to their winning address. 
" Thank you, my dear," said Lundy Foote to the little beggar- 
girl who bought a pennyworth of snuff. " Thank you, my dear, 
please call again," made Lundy Foote a millionnaire. Some 
years ago a dry-goods salesman in a London shop had acquired 
such a reputation for courtesy and exhaustless patience that it 
was said to be impossible to provoke from him any expression 
of irritability or the smallest symptom of vexation. A lady 
of rank, hearing of his wondrous equanimity, determined to 
put it to the test by all the annoyances with which a veteran 
shop-visitor knows how to tease a shopman. She failed in the 
attempt, and thereupon set him up in business. He rose to 
eminence in the haberdashery trade, and the mainspring of his 
later as of his early career was politeness. It is related of the 
late Mr. Butler, of Providence, Rhode Island, that he was so 
obliging as to reopen his store one night solely to supply a 
little girl with a spool of thread which she wanted. The inci- 
dent took wind, brought him a large run of custom, and he 
died a millionnaire, after subscribing $ 40,000 toward founding 
a hospital for the insane, — a sum which he was persuaded to 
give by Miss Dix, whom he was too polite to shake off, though 
almost as penurious as she was persevering. 

Chesterfield does not exaggerate in saying that the art of 
pleasing is, in truth, the art of rising, of distinguishing one's 



MANNER. 153 

self, of making a figure and a fortune in the world. It is said 
that some years ago in England a curate of narrow income but 
kindly disposition perceived two elderly spinsters, in old-fash- 
ioned costume, beset with jeers and jibes by a mob of men and 
boys lounging round the church porch while the bell was ring- 
ing for service. Forcing his way through the crowd, he gave 
one lady his right arm and the other his left, led them both 
into church, and escorted them politely up the middle aisle to a 
convenient pew, regardless of the stares and titters of the con- 
gregation. Some years afterwards the needy curate was agree- 
ably surprised by the announcement that the two old ladies, 
having lately died, had bequeathed him a handsome fortune in 
recognition of his well-timed courtesy. 

A striking illustration of the pecuniary value of obligingness 
is found in the success of the late Mr. Ingram, publisher of the 
London " Illustrated News," who perished in Lake Michigan 
when the "Lady Elgin " was wrecked. He began life at Notting- 
ham, England, as printer and newsdealer ; and, having among 
his customers a gentleman who wanted his paper very early, he 
was so anxious to save him from disappointment that one day 
he walked ten miles to supply a single paper. On another 
occasion he rose from bed at two in the morning, and trav- 
elled all the way to London to get some copies of a newspaper, 
because there was no post to bring them, being determined that 
his customers should have their journal. There is no man so 
" hard-shelled " that his soul cannot be reached by kindness. 
It is said that the celebrated miser, Jack Elwes, to save butchers' 
bills, made a point of eating his own sheep from head to tail, 
even though the mutton almost crawled off the plate before it 
was consumed. And yet the same sordid being gave hundreds 
to advance the interests of an officer whose manners had 
pleased him in a few casual interviews ; thus showing that, 
when all else had failed, the oiled key of courtesy could force 
back the rusty wards even of the miser's double-locked heart. 

It was through his civility to a couple of strangers, one of 
them a foreigner, that Mr. Winans, of Philadelphia, is said to 
7* 



154 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

have obtained, some years ago, his invitation to go to St. Peters- 
burg and manufacture locomotives for the Russian czar. The 
gentlemen had been shown with indifference through the larger 
establishments of Philadelphia, but, on their coming to Mr. Wi- 
nans's, a third or fourth rate factory, he took so much pains to 
show all its parts and workings, and was so patient in his ex- 
planations and answers to their inquiries, that, within a year, he 
was surprised by an invitation to transfer his labors to Eussia. 
He went, accumulated a large fortune, and ultimately received 
from his Russian workshops a hundred thousand dollars a year. 
Investing his money in real estate, he laid the foundation of 
one of the largest private fortunes in Philadelphia ; and all this 
was the result of civility to strangers. 

Few men have influenced more powerfully the persons with 
whom they have come in contact than Bishop Fenelon. The 
secret of his sway over hearts was his uniform courtesy, a 
politeness springing from a profound love for his fellow-beings, 
of whatever rank or class. Lord Peterborough, the distin- 
guished English general, said of him, that he was " a delicious 
man," — that " he had to run away from him to prevent his 
making him a Christian." Military men, as a class, are cour- 
teous the world over, attention to manner being a part of their 
training. Canon Kingsley observes that the love and admi- 
ration which that truly brave and loving man, Sir Sidney Smith, 
won from every one, rich and poor, with whom he came in 
contact, seems to have arisen from the one fact, that, without, 
perhaps, having any such conscious intention, he treated rich 
and poor, his own servants and the noblemen, his guests, alike, 
and alike courteously, cheerfully, considerately, affectionately, — 
so leaving a blessing and reaping a blessing wherever he went." 

True courage and courtesy go hand in hand. The bravest 
men are the most forgiving, and the most anxious to avoid 
quarrels. It was said of Sir John Franklin that he was a man 
" who never turned his back upon a danger, yet of that tender- 
ness that he would not brush away a mosquito." At a late 
period in life the Duke of Wellington wrote to a friend : " I 



MANNER. 155 

am not in the habit of deciding upon such matters hastily or 
in anger ; and the proof of this is, that / never had a quarrel 
with any man in my life ! " Considering the long and varied 
career, civil and military, of " The Iron Duke," and that, too, 
in different parts of the globe ; the countless persons, of the 
most opposite qualities, with whom he had to deal ; his con- 
stant vexations in the Peninsula with Spanish pride and sus- 
picion, and red-tapism at home ; the habits of his army at that 
time ; and his trials in political life, — it is truly wonderful 
that the great captain, whose truthfulness was extreme, could at 
the age of sixty have thus spoken of himself. It is evident 
that he could never have said it, had he not learned, before 
commanding others, to command himself, watching and gov- 
erning his own feelings with the same coolness and self-posses- 
sion with which he handled his troops on the battle-field. 

If manner has such consequences, is it not folly to despise 
or neglect it 1 On the contrary, should not the cultivation of 
it be an important part of every man's education 1 We have 
dwelt at length upon it, because upon no other point are young 
men so apt to make a serious mistake as upon this. They 
think that if they only have the substance, the form is of little 
moment. But manners are more than mere form ; they are 
"a compound of form and spirit, — spirit acted into form." 
With business tact and energy, with learning and professional 
skill, the neophyte flatters himself he is sure to succeed. He 
can push his way through by main force. And no doubt a 
man may have abilities and a force of character so extraordi- 
nary as to compel all obstacles to give way before him. But 
advancement so gained is gained by a great waste of power. 
The same abilities accompanied with prepossessing manners 
would have achieved far more brilliant results. No doubt, by 
the use of mere brute force one may make a certain amount 
of impression ; and so, too, may a soldier hew down his foes 
with an old-fashioned battle-axe or with a scythe, but would 
he be wise in preferring such a weapon to the keen Damascus 
blade ] 



156 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Even Christian men sometimes fail in courtesy, deeming it a 
mark of weakness and effeminacy, or neglecting it from mere 
thoughtlessness. Yet, if we note the men who by their force- 
ful qualities have most powerfully influenced their fellows, we 
shall find them to have added this to their other virtues, and 
that it was by this that they got access to the hearts they 
moved. An old English poet reverently styles our Saviour 
"the first true gentleman that ever breathed." Nobody will 
accuse Paul or Peter of effeminacy ; yet, though they never 
hesitated to declare " the whole counsel of God," and often 
thundered into unwilling ears the most disagreeable truths, 
their epistles are as full of gentleness and graceful courtesy as 
of logic and invective. A great many good men would double 
their influence if they could contrive to be less stiff and inelas- 
tic, — if they would but put a hinge into their necks and keep 
it well oiled. Gentleness in society, it has been truly said, 
" is like the silent influence of light, which gives color to all 
nature ; it is far more powerful than loudness or force, and far 
more fruitful. It pushes its way silently and persistently, like 
the tiniest daffodil in spring, which raises the clod, and thrusts 
it aside by the simple persistence of growing." 

It is sometimes said that civility costs nothing ; and it is 
true, if by it is meant a mere external varnish, a thin wash, 
made up of grimaces and bows. But the civility we mean is 
not a mere superficial, skin-deep politeness, "a candy'd deal 
of courtesy," the indiscriminate fawning of a spaniel, the 
grimaces of an unctuous impostor, but a hearty wish to make 
others happy at our own cost, a manly deference, without hy- 
pocrisy or obtrusion. The first law of good manners, which 
epitomizes all the rest, is " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." True courtesy is simply the application of this 
golden rule to all our social conduct ; or, as Dr. Witherspoor 
so happily defined it, it is "real kindness, kindly expressed." 
It may be met in the hut of the Arab, in the court-yard of the 
Turk, in the hovel of the freedman, in the cottage of the 
Irishman, but is very rare in the houses of the nouveaux riches 



MANNER. 157 

or in ball-rooms. That neither morality, nor genius, nor 
both combined, will insure its manifestation, is evident from 
the examples of Dr. Johnson and Carlyle. The former, the 
despot of the " Literary Club," was so rude and gruff in man- 
ner as to acquire the nickname of " Ursa Major " ; and though 
Goldsmith pleaded with truth in his behalf, " No man alive 
has a more tender heart, he has nothing of the bear about 
him but his skin," yet we cannot call a man polite who ate 
like an Esquimau, and with whom " You don't understand 
the question, sir," and " You lie, sir," were the extremes of 
his method in arguing with scholars on his own level. 

Johnson had an abundance of nobleness, courage, and kind- 
ness of heart ; but neither of these without kindness of man- 
ner is politeness. Nor can Carlyle, with his many noble 
qualities, be deemed polite, if, as a leading London journal 
asserts, his supreme contempt for the persons who disagree 
with him exasperates even those who have the highest respect 
for his integrity and insight. "Washington, on the other hand, 
was polite when he promptly returned the salute of a colored 
man ; Arnold was polite when the poor woman felt that he 
treated her as if she were a lady ; Chalmers was polite when 
every old woman in Morningside was elated and delighted 
with his courteous salute ; and so was Robert Burns when he 
recognized an honest farmer in the street of Edinburgh, declar- 
ing to one who rebuked him that it was " not the great-coat, 
the scone bonnet, and the Saunders boot-hose " that he spoke 
to, " but the man that was in them." 

Such politeness can never be acquired by studying artificial 
rules in books of " Etiquette." The effect of all such efforts is 
to make one think of himself rather than of others ; whereas 
thinking of others, rather than of one's self, is the very es- 
sence of all courtesy. "Few young people," it has been 
truthfully said, " can lay themselves out to please after the 
Chesterfieldian method, without making themselves offensive 
or ridiculous to persons of any discernment ; but a frank com- 
mittal of one's self into benevolent hands, a trust in good 



158 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

intentions, a graceful self-adaptation, some remains of that con 
fiding temper of infancy which opens its mouth and shuts its 
eyes, confident that something sweet, some untried good, will 
reward the trust, — such a disposition, allied to ordinary talent 
and discretion, is a fortune in itself. Society does not, in fact 
want the abstract best man, — which means somebody who 
would be best if many things in him were different from and 
opposite to what they are, — but the man who can work best 
with others, who can bring out and be brought out, and with 
whom it can most pleasantly get along." 

It has been well remarked that whoever imagines legitimate 
manners can be taken up and laid aside, put on and off for the 
moment, has missed their deepest law. " A noble and attrac- 
tive every-day bearing comes of goodness, of sincerity, of re- 
finement. And these are bred in years, not moments. The 
principle that rules your life is the sure posture-master. Sir 
Philip Sidney was the pattern to all England of a perfect 
gentleman ; but then he was the hero that, on the field of 
Zutphen, pushed away the cup of cold water from his own 
fevered and parching lips, and held it out to the dying soldier 
at his side ! " * Such civility implies self-sacrifice, and it has 
reached maturity after many struggles and conflicts. It is an 
art and a tact, rather than an instinct or an inspiration. It is 
the last touch, the crowning perfection, of a noble character ; it 
has been truly described as the gold on the spire, the sunlight 
on the cornfield, the smile on the lip of the noble knight 
lowering his sword-point to his lady-love ; and it results only 
from the truest balance and harmony of soul. 

* Rev. F. D. Huntington, D.D. 



BUSINESS HABITS. 159 



CHAPTER XII. 

BUSINESS HABITS. 

Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister. — Pliny. 
" Habit at first is but a silken thread, 
Fine as the light-winged gossamers that sway 
In the warm sunbeams of a summer's day ; 
A shallow streamlet, rippling o'er its bed ; 
A tiny sapling, ere its roots are spread ; 
A yet unhardened thorn upon the spray ; 
A lion's whelp that hath not scented prey ; 
A little smiling child obedient led. 
Beware ! that thread may bind thee as a chain ; 
That streamlet gather to a fatal sea ; 
That sapling spread into a gnarled tree ; 
That thorn, grown hard, may wound and give thee pain ; 
That playful whelp his murderous fangs reveal ; 
That child, a giant, crush thee 'neath his heel." 

"A man is not physically perfect who has lost his little finger. It is no 
answer to say that such a man can do many things as well as before his muti- 
lation. Can he do every thing as well ? So every bad habit cripples in kind, 
though not in degree. " 

Custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress. She, by little and lit- 
tle, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority, but having by 
this gentle and bumble beginning, with the aid of time, fixed and established 
it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we 
have no more the courage nor the power so much as to lift up our eyes. — 
Montaigne. 

IN some of our large mechanical establishments may be seen 
a machine invented to operate upon cold iron. With all 
the ease and quiet of a common printing-press, it exerts a force 
equal to a thousand tons, whilst at every pressure of the " cam " 
large cubes are pressed out of the solid bar as easily as one can 
break earthenware or mould clay. It will push its hard steel 
finger through iron two inches thick, without the slightest jar- 
ring or failure in the regularity of its action. "What is the 
secret of this prodigious and constant power \ It is found in 



160 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

the accumulated force of the balance-wheel, which, revolving 
one hundred and thirty times a minute, bears with overwhelm- 
ing force upon the steel punch, and must either break the whole 
machine into fragments, or pierce through every obstacle. 

In this ingenious piece of mechanism we have a striking illus- 
tration of the power of habit. Who has not seen, in hundreds 
of instances, a moral force accumulated by it as resistless as 
that of the balance-wheel'? There are times of pressure in 
every man's life when he would utterly fail but for the help 
thus afforded ; but, fortunately, at the crisis, by the force of 
principles that have gathered energy by long and persevering 
habit, he is carried over the dead-point, and then is able to 
rally his strength for new trials. The vast reserve power that 
lies in habit has often been noticed by moralists. Man, says 
Paley, is a bundle of habits ; and habit, according to the prov- 
erb, is a second nature, which, we all know, is sometimes so 
powerful as to exterminate the first. Metastasio held so strong 
an opinion as to the power of repetition in thought and act, 
that he said : " All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself." 
Beginning with single acts, habit is formed slowly at first, and 
it is not till its spider's threads are woven into a thick cable 
that its existence is suspected. Then it is found that, begin- 
ning with cobwebs, it ends in chains. Gulliver was bound as 
fast by the Liliputians with multiplied threads as if they had 
used ropes. " Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon 
the earth," says Jeremy Bentham, " the seemingly unimportant 
events of life succeed one another. As the snow gathers 
together, so are our habits formed ; no single flake that is added 
to the pile produces a sensible change ; no single action creates, 
however it may exhibit, a man's character ; but as the tempest 
hurls the avalanche down the mountain, and overwhelms the 
inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting upon the 
elements of mischief which pernicious habits have brought 
together by imperceptible accumulation, may overthrow the 
edifice of truth and virtue." 

'Hie force of this principle is strikingly illustrated in the 



BUSINESS HABITS. 161 

fact that it renders pleasant things which at first were intensely- 
disagreeable or even painful. Walking upon the quarter-deck 
of a vessel, though felt at first to be intolerably confined, be- 
comes by custom so agreeable to a sailor, that in his walk on 
shore he often hems himself within the same bounds. Lord 
Karnes tells of a man who, having relinquished the sea for a 
country life, reared in the corner of his garden an artificial 
mount, with a level summit, resembling most accurately a quar- 
ter-deck, not only in shape, but in size, where he generally 
walked. When Franklin was superintending the erection of 
some forts on the frontier, as a defence against the Indians, he 
slept at night in a blanket on the hard floor, and, on his first 
return to civilized life, could hardly sleep in a bed. Captain Eoss 
and his crew, having been accustomed during their polar wan- 
derings to lie on the frozen snow or the bare rock, afterwards 
found the accommodations of a whaler too luxurious for them, 
and he was obliged to exchange his hammock for a chair. The 
game principle, in another form, is illustrated in the case of 
persons born blind, or deprived of sight, who, acquiring a habit 
of nice observation through the sense of feeling, astonish us 
by their accurate descriptions of things which they have ex- 
amined by means of their exquisitely delicate touch. So power- 
ful is this effect of the constant repetition of actions, that men 
whose habits are fixed may be almost said to have lost their free 
agency. Their acts become of the nature of fate, and they are so 
bound by the chains which they have woven for themselves, that 
they do that which they have been accustomed to do, even when 
they know it can yield neither pleasure nor profit. Fielding has 
strikingly illustrated this in a scene in the " Life of Jonathan 
Wild," where that person is represented as playing at cards 
with the Count, a professed gambler : " Such was the power 
of habit over the minds of these illustrious persons, that Mr. 
Wild could not keep his hands out of the Count's pockets, 
though he knew they were empty ; nor could the Count ab- 
stain from palming a card, though he was well aware Mr. Wild 
had no money to pay him." 



162 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

It has been truly said that even happiness itself may become 
habitual. One may acquire the habit of looking upon the 
sunny side of things, and he may also acquire the habit of 
looking upon the gloomy side. He may accustom himself by 
a happy alchemy to transmute the darkest events into materials 
for hope, or he may indulge in the practice of croaking till, 
like the malevolent being of the poet, 

Vix tenet lacrymas quia nil lacrymabile cernit. 

Hume, the historian, said that the habit of looking at the 
bright side of things was better than an income of a thousand 
a year. It was said of Cromwell that hope shone like a fiery 
pillar in him when it had gone out in all others. 

Such being the power of habit, can any one doubt that upon 
the early formation of good habits hinges the question of suc- 
cess in life 1 Above all, can we doubt that habits of patient 
and accurate observation, such as we have said the blind man 
evinces, would be of incalculable value, if brought to bear upon 
the thousand and one details of business life % Or is there a 
question that the opposite habits of negligence and inattention 
must lead to disaster or ruin % 

Hazlitt seems to have regarded a business life as so much a 
matter of habit, of mere routine, as to be adapted only to plod- 
ders. In one of his brilliant essays he represents business men 
as mere machines. They are put in a go-cart, and are harnessed 
to a profession, — yoked to fortune's wheel. All they have to 
do, he says, is to let things take their course, and not go out of 
the beaten road. " The great requisite for the prosperous man- 
agement of business is the want of imagination, or of any ideas 
but those of custom and interest on the narrowest scale." Take 
what you can get, he adds, and keep what you have got ; seize 
eagerly every opportunity that offers for promoting your own 
interest, and make the most of the advantages you have already 
obtained, and by plodding, persevering industry, you will be- 
come a first-class merchant. 

This is a favorite doctrine of some literary men, but nothing 



BUSINESS HABITS. 163 

can be more untrue. 2s"o doubt there are narrow-minded men 
of business, who measure everything by yard or tape-measure ; 
who believe in nothing which, as Burke says, " they cannot 
measure with a two-foot rule, — which they cannot count with 
their ten fingers " ; and whose lives run in a groove from which 
they never escape. But are there no lawyers, doctors, or theo- 
logians who are plodders ; and do literary men never echo the 
old commonplaces, instead of delighting us by their breadth 
and originality of thought? Great men in every profession 
must necessarily be few. The legal boasts but few Marshalls, 
Pinckneys, and AVebsters ; the medical but few Coopers, Bro- 
dies, Velpeaus, and TTarrens ; the clerical but few Barrows, 
Edwardses, AEasons, and Channings. The names of our great 
statesmen may almost be counted on the fingers. A small busi- 
ness demands but a small mind ; but that business when con- 
ducted on a large scale does not give scope for the display of 
the very highest powers of the mind, it is not easy to believe. 
In past ages, before the invention of the steam-engine and the 
electric telegraph, when commerce had a narrow range, but few 
faculties of the mind were called into play by business ; but 
to-day, when submarine cables are making of the whole world 
a whispering gallery, and the fluctuations of one market are 
felt in every other, when so varied a knowledge and so con- 
stant a watchfulness are necessary to success, it cannot be 
doubted that application to work, absorption in affairs, contact 
with men, and all the stress which business imposes, give a 
most efficient training to the intellect, and the highest scope for 
the discipline of character. ^Yhen we consider what mental 
powers are demanded to conduct a colossal trade, or to push 
through any great commercial scheme, — that it demands sound 
judgment, precise adaptation of means to ends, great energy, 
promptness of decision and action in emergencies, skill in or- 
ganizing and tact in managing men in large numbers, as well as 
many minor qualities, — we shall conclude that consummate 
men of business are as rare almost as great poets, orators, ot 
painters. 



164 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

A writer in the London Pall Mall Gazette says, justly, 
that " it is an utterly low view of business which regards it as 
only a means of getting a living. A man's business is his part 
of the world's work, his share of the great activities which 
render society possible. He may like it or dislike it, but it is 
work, and as such requires application, self-denial, discipline. 
It is his drill, and he cannot be thorough in his occupation 
without putting himself into it, checking his fancies, restraining 
his impulses, and holding himself to the perpetual round of 
small details, — without, in fact, submitting to his drill. But 
the perpetual call on a man's readiness, self-control, and vigor, 
which business makes, the constant appeal to the intellect, the 
stress upon the will, the necessity for rapid and responsible ex- 
ercise of judgment, — all these constitute a high culture, though 
not the highest. It is a culture which strengthens and invig- 
orates, if it does not refine ; which gives force, if not polish, — 
the fortiter in re, if not the suaviter in modo. It makes strong 
men, and ready men, and men of vast capacity for affairs, 
though it does not necessarily make refined men or gentlemen." 

Among the habits required for the efficient prosecution of 
business of any kind, the most important are those of applica- 
tion, observation, method, accuracy, punctuality, and despatch. 
There are persons who will sneer at these virtues as little 
things, trifles unworthy of their notice. But it must be re- 
membered that human life is made up of trifles ; and that, as 
the pence make the pounds and the minutes the hours, so it is 
the repetition of things severally insignificant that make up 
human character. In nine cases out of ten where men have 
failed of success, it has been owing to the neglect of little 
things deemed too microscopic to need attention. 

Upon the importance of assiduity, or unremitting applica- 
tion to business, it is needless to dwell. All the men who 
have made their own fortunes have been pre-eminently dis- 
tinguished for their intense and steady industry, the habit of 
which was early formed. If you would succeed, you must 
give your whole mind, heart, and soul to your work. To do 



BUSINESS HABITS. 165 

this, you must love your work ; in no other way can you be 
diligent ; the very word, in its etymology, implies it. It is 
not talents or acquirements, but enthusiasm and energy, that 
win the battle of life. It is ardor and earnestness that make 
a man's blows tell ; a sharp stroke from a whip will do more 
execution than a deliberate swing of a bar of iron. It was 
well remarked by a Wall Street capitalist, that a bank never 
becomes very successful until it has a president who takes it to 
bed with him. Next to the youth who has no calling, he is 
most to be pitied who toils without heart, and is therefore for- 
ever dawdling, — loitering and lingering, instead of striking 
with all his might. Laziness, fickleness, impatience, may be 
cured ; but the habit of dawdling, once formed, is ineradicable. 
Its consequences are the more disastrous because it is never 
found alone, but always in company with other bad habits, 
such as procrastination, fickleness, lack of punctuality, and 
often with untruthfulness. One of the qualities which early 
distinguished John C. Calhoun was his power of attention. A 
gentleman who in his youth was wont to accompany Mr. Calhoun 
in his strolls states that the latter endeavored to impress upon 
his friend the importance of cultivating this faculty ; " and to 
encourage me in my efforts," says the writer, " he stated that 
to this end he had early subjected his mind to such a rigid 
course of discipline, and had persisted without faltering until 
he had early acquired a perfect control over it ; that he could 
now confine it to any subject as long as he pleased, without 
wandering even for a moment ; that it was his uniform habit, 
when he set out alone to walk or ride, to select a subject for 
reflection, and that he never suffered his attention to wander 
from it until he was satisfied with its examination." 

It has been remarked by Sir William Hamilton that " the 
difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of Newton 
consists principally in this, that the one is capable of a more 
continuous attention than the other, — that a Newton is able, 
without fatigue, to connect inference with inference in one 
long series toward a determined end ; while the man of in- 



166 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

ferior capacity is soon obliged to break or let fall the thread 

which he has begun to spin Nay, genius itself has 

been analyzed by the shrewdest observers into a higher capacity 
of attention. ' Genius,' says Helvetius, ' is nothing but a con- 
tinued attention.' ' Genius,' says Buffon, ' is only a protracted 
patience.' ' In the exact sciences, at least,' says Cuvier, ' it is 
the patience of sound intellect, when invincible, which truly 
constitutes genius.' And Chesterfield has also observed that 
* the power of applying an attention, steady and undissipated, 
to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.' " 

Cultivate, then, this habit, if you would succeed in business. 
Make it a second nature. Have a work for every moment, and 
mind the moment's work. Whatever your calling, master all 
its bearings and details, all its principles, instruments, and ap- 
plications. Let nothing about it escape your notice ; sound it 
" from its lowest note to the top of its compass." 

The habit of method is essential to all who have much work 
to do, if they would get through it easily and with economy 
of time. Fuller, the old divine, says to those who would re- 
member what they read : " Marshal thy notions into a hand- 
some method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and 
packed up in bundles, than when it lies untowardly flapping 
and hanging about his shoulders." Cecil, who was a prodigious 
worker, has a similar hint. " Method," he says, " is like pack- 
ing things in a box ; a good packer will get in half as much 
again as a bad one." The biographer of Noah Webster tells us 
that " method was the presiding principle of his life " ; and it 
is evident that without it he never could have got through with 
the herculean task of compiling his great dictionary. Coleridge, 
though himself one of the most immethodical of men, yet 
thought so highly of method that he wrote a treatise on it for 
the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. It is said that Whitefield 
could not go to sleep at night, if, after retiring, he remembered 
that his gloves and riding-whip were not in their usual place, 
where he could lay his hands upon them in the dark or any 
emergency. Napoleon, who astonished the sovereigns of 



BUSINESS HABITS. 167 

Europe at the Congress of Erfurt by the minuteness of his 
knowledge of historic dates, was an eminently systematic man. 
He used to say that his knowledge was all deposited in drawers, 
and he had only to open a particular drawer, and all that he 
had learned on a subject was ready to his hand. 

There is no business which does not demand system. The 
meanest trade exacts it, and will go to ruin without it. But in 
a complicated business it is indispensable. It is this that binds 
all its parts together, and gives unity to all its details. With- 
out it the vast energies of the great merchant who gathers and 
distributes the products of every clime, linking the four quar- 
ters of the globe by his far-reaching agencies, would be an im- 
possibility. Commissioners of insolvency say that the books 
of nine bankrupts out of ten are found to be in a muddle, — 
kept without plan or method. Let every young man, there- 
fore, see to it that his work is systematized, — arranged accord- 
ing to a carefully studied method, which takes up everything 
at the right time and applies to it adequate resources. It is 
easy, of course, to sneer at " red tape." In the sense of a mere 
dead and meaningless routine, it merits all the contempt poured 
upon it. The mere formalist, with his cast-iron rules that never 
bend to circumstances, is a poor creature. Method without 
flexibility, which ceases to be a means, and becomes an end, 
proves a hindrance rather than a help ; and he who, forgetting 
its inner meaning, becomes its slave, shows a narrowness of 
mind which is unfitted for great and comprehensive enterprises. 
But an intelligent method, which surveys the whole work be- 
fore it, and assigns the several parts to distinct times and 
agents, which adapts itself to exigencies, and keeps ever in 
its eye the object to be attained, is one of the most powerful 
instruments of human labor. The professional or business man 
who despises it will never do anything well. It matters not 
how clever or brilliant he is, or how fertile in expedients, if he 
work without system, catching up whatever is nearest at hand, 
or trying to do half a dozen things at once, he will sooner or later 
come to grief. Xot only in the less intellectual callings, but in 



168 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. . 

the learned professions, the mere plodder who " pegs away " 
with steady, methodical industry, will outstrip him in the end. 

The importance of system in the discharge of daily duties 
was strikingly illustrated in the experience of Dr. Kane when 
he was locked up among the icebergs of the Arctic Circle, with 
the prospect of months of dreary imprisonment. With his 
men enfeebled by disease and privations, and when all but 
eight of his company had left him to search for a way of 
escape, he sustained the drooping spirits of the handful who 
clung to him, and kept up their energies, by systematic per- 
formance of duties and moral discipline. " It is," he observes, 
" the experience of every man who has either combated diffi- 
culties himself or attempted to guide others through them, 
that the controlling law shall be systematic action. Nothing 
depresses and demoralizes so much as a surrender of the 
approved and habitual forms of life. I resolved that every- 
thing should go on as it had done. The arrangement of hours, 
the distribution and details of duty, the religious exercises, the 
ceremonials of the table, the fires, the lights, the watch, the 
labors of the observatory, and the notation of the tides and the 
sky, — nothing should be intermitted that had contributed to 
make up the day." 

The necessity of accuracy to success in any calling is so 
obvious as hardly to need remark. Vital in scholarship, of 
the utmost importance to the professional man, it is scarcely 
less indispensable to success in trade or the mechanical call- 
ings. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. 
It is better to do a few things carefully, precisely as they 
should be done, than to do ten times as many in a loose, slov- 
enly way. Evident as all this is, yet hardly any quality is 
more rare than that of which we speak. Lawyers, in ques- 
tioning witnesses, have painful experience of this fact. They 
find nothing harder than to get the exact truth without sub- 
traction or addition, coloring or qualification. Always there is 
a more or less, and this, too, when the witness is conscientious, 
and anxious " a round, unvarnished tale " to deliver. Scien- 



BUSINESS HABITS. 169 

tine men, also, have complained bitterly of the difficulty of get- 
ting men to define a fact accurately. " I do not know that there 
is anything, except it be humility," says Arthur. Helps, " which 
is so valuable as an incident of education as accuracy. And 
accuracy can be taught. Direct lies told to the world are as 
dust in the balance when weighed against the falsehoods of in- 
accuracy. These are the fatal things ; and they are all-pervad- 
ing. I scarcely care what is taught to the young, if it will but 
implant in them the habit of accuracy." 

It matters little what virtues a man has, if he is habitually 
inexact. Be he a lawyer, an architect, an accountant, or an 
artisan, his work is done so poorly that it has to be done over 
again, causing infinite trouble and perplexity. The author of 
Self-Help observes that it was one of the characteristic qualities 
of Charles James Fox, that he was thoroughly pains-taking in 
all that he did. " When appointed Secretary of State, being 
piqued at some observation as to his bad writing, he actually 
took a writing-master, and wrote copies like a school-boy until 
he had sufficiently improved himself. Though a corpulent 
man, he was wonderfully active in picking up cut tennis balls, 
and when asked how he contrived to do so, he playfully replied, 
* Because I am a very painstaking man.' The same accuracy in 
trifling matters was displayed by him in things of greater impor- 
tance ; and he acquired his reputation, like the painter, by 
- neglecting nothing.' " 

Punctuality is another virtue which must be cultivated by 
all who would succeed in any calling, whether lofty or humble. 
It is emphatically the virtue of a mercantile and busy commu- 
nity. Nothing inspires confidence in a business man sooner 
than this quality, nor is there any habit which sooner saps his 
reputation than that of being always behind time. Thousands 
have failed in life from this cause alone. Unpunctuality is 
not only a serious vice in itself, but it is also the parent of a 
large progeny of other vices, so that he who becomes its victim 
becomes involved in toils from which it is almost impossible to 
escape. He who needlessly breaks his appointment shows that 



170 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

he is as reckless of the waste of others' time as of his own. 
His acquaintances readily conclude that the man who is not 
conscientious about his appointments will be equally careless 
about his other engagements, and they will refuse to trust him 
with matters of importance. To the busy man time is money, 
and he who robs him of it does him as great an injury, so far 
as loss of property is concerned, as if he had picked his pocket, 
or paid him with a forged check or counterfeit bills. 

Whether a man steals from me a dollar, or the half-hour in 
which I can earn that sum, is to me a matter of indifference. 
The former crime may be the more demoralizing to the offend- 
er ; but my loss is as great in one case as in the other. It 
has been justly said that there is as much injustice and cruelty 
in destroying a man's comfort during the five minutes you 
keep him waiting, as in giving him an actual "blow. But sup- 
pose ten or twenty men are kept waiting for one man, and 
that, too, in the business part of the day, when every moment 
is precious ; what shall we say of such conduct 1 The robbery 
is as great as that of a quarter or half of a day to one man. 
By an utterly inexcusable negligence he causes an utter perdi- 
tion of capital and labor to that amount, — more, perhaps, than 
by his own industry he can replace in a month, — to say 
nothing of the vexation he has caused, unfitting twenty men 
for their duties for all the rest of the day. 

It is a familiar truth that punctuality is the life of the uni- 
verse. The planets keep exact time in their revolutions, each, 
as it circles round the sun, coming to its place yearly at the 
very moment when it is due. So, in business, punctuality is 
the soul of industry, without which all its wheels come to a 
dead stand. If the time of a business man is properly occu- 
pied, every hour will have its appropriate work. If the work 
of one hour is postponed to another, it must encroach upon the 
time of some other duty, or remain undone ; and thus the 
whole business of the day is thrown into disorder. " When a 
regiment is under march," writes Sir Walter Scott to a young 
man who had asked his advice, " the rear is often thrown into 



BUSINESS HABITS. 171 

confusion because the front do not move steadily and without 
interruption. It is the same thing with business. If that 
which is first in hand be not instantly, steadily, and regularly 
despatched, other things accumulate behind, till affairs begin 
to press all at once, and no human brain can stand the con- 
fusion." 

Let every business man, then, keep a watch, and let him 
carefully regulate it, so that it may never be ahead or behind 
the stroke of the bell. Captain Cuttle had a watch of which 
he said that " if he could only remember to set it ahead half an 
hour in the forenoon, and back a quarter of an hour in the 
afternoon, it would keep time with anybody's watch." Too 
many business men have similar timekeepers, which they forget 
to set ahead ; the result of which is that they are late at the 
counting-room, late at the office, or late on 'change. True, 
they are often tardy but five or ten minutes, but it is just 
enough to break their engagement, damage their reputation, 
and lose a bargain. Punctuality should be made not only a 
point of courtesy, but a point of conscience. The beginner 
in business should make this virtue one of the first objects of 
professional acquisition. Let him not delude himself with the 
idea that it is easy of attainment, or that he can practise it by 
and by, when the necessity of it shall be more cogent. It is 
not easy to be punctual, no, not even in youth ; but in after- 
life, when the character is fixed, when the mental and moral 
faculties have acquired a cast-iron rigidity, to unlearn the 
habit of tardiness is almost an impossibility. It sticks to the 
man, though the reason be fully convinced of its criminality 
and inconvenience. 

The successful men in every calling have had a keen sense of 
the value of time. They have been misers of minutes. Nelson 
attributed all his success in life to having been a quarter of an 
hour before his time. Napoleon studied his watch as closely 
as he studied the maps of the battle-field. His victories were 
not won by consummate strategy merely, but by impressing 
his subordinates with the necessity of punctuality to the mm- 



172 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

lite. Manoeuvring over large spaces of country, so that the 
enemy was puzzled to decide where the blow would fall, he 
would suddenly concentrate his forces and fall with resistless 
might on some weak point in the extended lines of the foe, — 
a plan the successful execution of which demanded that every 
division of his army should be at the place named at the very 
hour. It is related that on one occasion his marshals, who had 
been invited to dine with him, were ten minutes late. Rising 
to meet them, the Emperor, who began his dinner as the clock 
struck and had finished, said : " Gentlemen, it is now past 
dinner, and we will immediately proceed to business " ; where- 
upon the marshals were obliged to spend the afternoon in plan- 
ning a campaign on an empty stomach. Later in life, Napoleon 
was less prompt ; and it was his loss of precious hours on the 
morning of Ligny, and his inexplicable dawdling on the day 
after the defeat of Blucher, which contributed more than any 
other cause to the fatal overthrow at Waterloo. On the other 
hand, it was the promptness and punctuality of " Marshal 
Forward " (as Blucher was nicknamed by his troops) which 
enabled Wellington to convert what otherwise would have 
probably been a drawn battle into a brilliant victory. The 
Napoleon of Austerlitz and Jena would have made history tell 
a different story. It is said that Colonel Rahl, the Hessian 
commander who in the American Revolution was routed and 
taken prisoner at Trenton, lost the battle through procrastina- 
tion. Engrossed in a game of cards, he postponed the reading 
of a letter which reached him, informing him that Washing- 
ton was about to cross the Delaware, and thus lost the oppor- 
tunity of thwarting the design of the American general, and 
perhaps giving a different direction to the War of Indepen- 
dence. Washington, on the other hand, was so rigidly punct- 
ual, that when Hamilton, his secretary, pleaded a slow watch 
as an excuse for being five minutes tardy, he replied : " Then, 
sir, either you must get a new watch, or I must get a new 
secretary." 

In the business world punctuality is as important as in the 



BUSINESS HABITS. 173 

military. " Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take 
care of themselves," is the secret of getting rich ; and so in 
the time-currency, minutes are the precious pence that, saved 
or lost, make the millionuaire or the bankrupt. How many 
persons have "been ruined by neglecting for a day, or even an 
hour, to renew an insurance policy ! How many merchants 
are made bankrupts by delays of their customers in paying 
their notes or accounts ! Often the failure of one man to 
meet his obligations promptly causes the ruin of a score of 
other men, just as in a line of bricks the toppling down of the 
master brick necessitates the fall of all the rest. 

John Quincy Adams, who filled a greater number of impor- 
tant offices, political and civil, than has any other American, 
was pre-eminently punctual. He was an economist of mo- 
ments, and was never known to be behind time. His reputa- 
tion in this respect was such that when in his old age he was a 
member of the House of Eepresentatives at Washington, and 
a gentleman observed that it was time to call the House to 
order, another replied, " No, Mr. Adams is not in his seat." 
The clock, it was found, was actually three minutes too fast ; 
and, before three minutes had elapsed, Mr. Adams was at his 
post. 

While the business man should be especially punctual to 
his express engagements with other persons, he should also 
keep all his implied engagements, and therefore should be 
always at his shop or office at the regular hour. There are 
some kinds of work which men are comparatively excusable 
for doing irregularly. Literary labor, which depends so much 
upon the condition of the mind and body, is of this kind. 
Milton was in the vein only in the springtime ; and many 
lesser writers can realize their ideals only when they are 
inspired by circumstances beyond their control. Yet not a 
few writers have schooled themselves to write at set hours; 
and Dr. Johnson went so far as to say that a man could write 
at any hour and in any mood, if he would but set himself 
doggedly about it. But mercantile men and business men 



174 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

generally have no excuse for irregularity. They have not to 
wait for moods and impulses, — for the afflatus- or inspiration 
which is so capricious with men whose business is all of the 
brain and none of the hand. They are therefore expected, 
and justly expected, to be promptly at their posts, ready al- 
ways to attend to the business of buying and selling, giving 
professional advice, or whatever other duties belong to their 
calling ; and it is evident that of two such men of equal tal- 
ents, the one who is always at his desk or shop at the striking 
of the clock cannot fail to secure the greater number of cus- 
tomers. 

To all the habits we have named should be added, lastly, 
that of despatch. The other qualities upon which we have in- 
sisted are of more vital importance ; but when this is added, it 
puts the keystone to the arch of a business character. Many 
professional men, traders, and artisans do their work thoroughly, 
accurately, and punctually, who fail just here. They have 
never caught the knack of doing it quickly. Hardly anything 
is more characteristic of a first-class workman than the brisk, 
expeditious way in which he executes any job intrusted to 
him. Of course, quickness should always be secondary to 
thoroughness. Nothing can atone for the lack of complete- 
ness and accuracy. True despatch is not a smart and facile 
activity, which skims over a subject lightly, or dashes off a job 
perfunctorily, satisfied with imperfect work provided it is done 
speedily. It is a quickness which follows from thorough 
knowledge and the highest skill, — from the perfection of a 
method which takes everything at the right time, and applies 
to it the needed resources. It is the triumph of experience 
and system. To the energetic, systematic man it matters not 
how complex a business is. The more it tasks his faculties, 
the more does it evoke his latent powers, so that to do increases 
the capacity of doing, and a large amount of work is done 
with greater ease than a small amount by a slow man. 

It is an inestimable advantage when to a habit of despatch 
is added the gift of readiness, — the ability to use all one's 



BUSINESS HABITS. 175 

resources instantly and at the right moment. We say " gift," 
because the ready man is born, not made. jSTo amount of cul- 
tivation will enable a man to say and do the best things on 
the spur of the moment, to dash off a masterly newspaper or 
review article on some memorable event immediately after it 
occurs, or to take instant advantage of an enemy's blunder, 
like Xapoleon "or Marlborough. Eeadiness is a natural tact or 
intuition, an inspiration, a kind of presence of mind which 
enables one to meet a crisis, parry a thrust, strike a blow, or 
say the right word, in the very " nick of time," without re- 
flection or delay. In war, politics, journalism, at the bar 
and in the Senate, in social intercourse, it is a great power. 
In all kinds of tongue-fence — the close hand-to-hand encounter 
of intellects, where the home thrust is often so suddenly 
given — it is indispensable. It is not the amount of knowl- 
edge, the number of facts or statistics which a man has in his 
cranium, that makes him a dangerous antagonist, but his ability 
to marshal them and bring them to bear instantly upon any 
point. So, too, in business pursuits, the ready man, other 
things being equal, is pre-eminently the successful man. 

The Americans, as a people, have no lack of readiness. 
Collectively considered, we do not want dash and elan. Our 
intellectual resources, such as they are, are usually at our com- 
mand, and we can concentrate them with wonderful quickness 
in any exigency. Still, there are not a few of us who find 
ourselves at times in the condition of Artemus Ward in respect 
to oratory : "I have the gift of oratory," said the Maine 
Yankee, " but I have n't it about me." How often an oppor- 
tunity occurs to a young lawyer, or other professional man, to 
make a reputation by a single speech or other intellectual 
effort, if he were only ready ! If he could have a little time 
for preparation, — a day or a few hours only, — he would acquit 
himself brilliantly. But time never is given ; and because he 
cannot act now, at the very crisis, he loses the golden oppor- 
tunity forever. To achieve any rare success in this world, we 
must be semper parati, with our wits always about us. We 
must think and act as quickly and wisely in an emergency a* 



176 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

did Baron Munchausen, who, being once threatened at the same 
moment by a crocodile and a tiger, disposed of both his assail- 
ants by stepping aside and allowing the tiger to jump down 
the crocodile's throat. It is not enough, after the game has 
flown, that we might have brought it down, if our guns had 
been cocked and loaded. " ' What a scathing reply I might 
have made to Smith about Darwinism ! ' is the regretful re- 
flection of Jones, as he retires heated and discomfited from a 
contest with Smith on the subject of natural selection. What 
capital things we might say and don't ! . . . . When we are 
alone, we invent the happiest of retorts ; the most unanswer- 
able arguments flash upon us without an effort on our part ; 
we feel that we have more weapons in our mental armory than 
Brown ever dreamed of; yet, somehow, when Brown attacks 
us suddenly, we cannot bring our twelve-pounder to bear upon 
him before he has shot us through and through with his ready 
little revolver. We of the superior metal find ourselves spiked, 
so to speak. The fact is, we lack readiness." 

It was so, if we may credit Fuller, with Ben Jonson in his 
" wit-combats " with Shakespeare. The two were "like a 
Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master 
Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning ; 
solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the 
English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but lighter in sailing, could 
turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantages of all 
winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." 

A powerful encouragement to the formation of business 
habits is found in the fact that, once formed, they operate spon- 
taneously. The wonderful accuracy of the forest-bred Indian 
in detecting and describing the number and character of a 
party who have preceded him through the woods, and the cer- 
tainty with which he will determine the time since they left 
any particular spot, have often astonished white men, who 
could perceive no signs upon which to found an opinion. Yet 
the red man rarely blunders, for he has schooled his senses 
into unerring habits of nice and accurate observation. But, 
because it is a habit, he is not obliged to force his mind ; it is 



BUSINESS HABITS. 177 

his pleasure, and forms one of the charms of forest life, to 
watch every indented leaf, every faint footprint, every minute 
and barely perceptible sign that some one has gone before him. 
So when a merchant has acquired the habit of watching the 
markets, studying the laws of demand and supply, ascertaining 
the probability of a financial crisis, and looking after all the 
other details of his business, it becomes a pleasurable excite- 
ment instead of a wearisome effort. Indeed, the very habits 
of nice order and observation which require the most pains- 
taking care to form them, often become a hobby, at last, which 
one delights to ride as much as a child his rocking-horse. It 
is notorious that those persons who have reached the highest 
eminence in the law were disgusted with it at first. Lord 
Somers told Addison that, having been obliged to search 
among old musty records, the task which was inexpressibly 
irksome at first became at last so very pleasant that he pre- 
ferred it to reading Virgil or Cicero, though classical literature 
had been his constant delight. 

To sum up all, what is business but habit, the soul of which 
is regularity 1 Like the fly-wheel upon a steam-engine, it is 
this principle which keeps the motion of life steady and un- 
broken, distributing the force equally over all the work to 
be performed. But such habits as we have commended are 
not to be formed in a day, nor by a few faint resolutions. 
Not by accident, not by fits and starts, — being one moment 
in a paroxysm of attention, and the next falling into the sleep 
of indifference, — are they to be attained, but by steady, per- 
sistent effort. Above all, it is necessary that they should be 
acquired in youth ; for then do they cost the least effort. 
Like letters cut in the bark of a tree, they grow and widen 
with age. Once attained, they are a fortune of themselves ; 
for their possessor has disposed thereby of the heavy end of 
the load of life ; all that remains he can carry easily and pleas- 
antly. On the other hand, bad habits, once formed, will hang 
forever on the wheels of enterprise, and in the end will assert 
their supremacy, to the ruin and shame of their victim. 



178 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SELF-ADVERTISING. 

The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the radical moist- 
ure and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise 
issues forth. — Milton. 

I know that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth ; but I 
pray your Majesty impute it to my desire, — possunt quia posse videntttr. — 
Lord Bacon to James I. 

Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet per- 
haps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where some- 
times there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. — Swift. 

On ne vaut que ce qu'on veut valoir. — La Bruyere. 

SHALL a man be his own trumpeter ? or, relying on his 
merits, shall he aim to be rather than to seem qualified for 
his business, and leave the world to find out the fact for itself? 
This is a question which confronts every man at the very out- 
set of his career. How the world has answered it we need 
not say. The mythologists tell us that Minerva threw away 
the flute when she found that it puffed up her cheeks ; but if 
in this age men cast away the flute, it is to use a more potent 
instrument of puffing, by blowing their own trumpets. This 
instrument, it is almost universally agreed, should be of brass. 
IsTot only in trade, but in all the professions, self-trumpeting is 
now acknowledged to be the great talisman of success, and the 
man who can blow his horn the longest and loudest is regarded 
as the most likely to reach the pinnacle of riches and respecta- 
bility, if not of honor. 

The old-fashioned modes of securing patronage or custom, 
by strict integrity and quiet attention to one's business, are 
scouted on all hands. Merit is voted " a slow coach," and 
modesty a humbug. A writer in one of our most popular 
magazines goes so far as to assert that a tinge of charlatanism 



SELF- ADVERTISING. 179 

seems, indeed, almost necessary to a career, whether in busi- 
ness, literature, art, or science. " A little unscrupulousness," 
he adds, "generally flavors the finest achievements. Nature 
insists, apparently, that the best of us shall use some contriv- 
ance, and will permit nobody to neglect it entirely, without 
suffering penalties." Acting upon this doctrine, an enterpris- 
ing tradesman, whose business chances to be hat-making, never 
dreams of setting himself diligently to make better hats than 
another, that so the heads of the human race may be more 
honorably covered ; but he sets up an enormous lath-and- 
piaster hat on wheels, and sends it circulating through the 
streets with the speculative hope of persuading us into a con- 
viction of his superiority, and thereby gaining an influx of 
custom. He outbids the world for its patronage by the bold- 
ness of his proclamations, and expects to succeed by the very 
extravagance of his pretensions. A man who has music 
neither in his soul nor in his larynx, and whose voice, when 
he attempts to sing, reminds you of Milton's infernal gates, 
" grating harsh thunder," would have you believe him a fine 
vocalist ; and so, instead of ravishing your ears with 

" Many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness long drawn out," 

he resorts to the " dodge " of paying six hundred dollars for a 
seat at Jenny Lind's first concert in America. Gullibility, in 
short, is deemed the surest avenue to success, and hence hu- 
man ingenuity is evermore racked and tortured for new means 
of attracting and securing attention, the results of which 
everywhere confront us, — on the walls of buildings, in end- 
less circulars, in newspaper advertisements, in boys at street- 
corners thrusting mysterious slips of paper into our hands, in 
huge placards borne on men's shoulders, and in the lumbering 
caravans with ear-stunning bands of music which obstruct 
the thoroughfares of our large cities. Blow your own trumpet 
is the advice of every one, if you do not wish to be trampled 
under foot in the rush of competitive strife, and die in ob- 



180 GETTING ON IN THE WOELD. 

scurity. Sound your charge, and ride over somebody, or some- 
body will sound his charge, and ride over you. 

Now and then you meet with a simple-minded man who 
gives all his soul to doing his work well. But this, the 
worldly wise will tell you, is an egregious mistake. Such a 
mode of procedure might do in Mars or Saturn, but is totally 
out of place in this puffing, advertising, bill-sticking part of 
creation. The art of self-advancement is not so much to do a 
thing well, as to get a thing which has been moderately well 
done largely talked about. The works of a De Quincey, with^ 
out newspaper puffing, would find purchasers only among 
pastry-cooks and barbers ; while the sensational novel of the 
Monk Lewis or Ainsworth school, whose name stares out upon 
you in Gothic capitals from newspapers and posters, sells as 
well as Jayne's Expectorant, and the platitudes of Martin F. 
Tupper are as popular as Mustang Liniment. 

ISTow that this policy, however sharply it may be censured 
by the moralist, is more conducive to success than its opposite, 
cannot, we think, be doubted. Travellers in Oriental countries 
tell us that to him who would be respected there a certain air 
of conscious importance is indispensable. The Orientals, they 
say, have no notion that it can " pay " to respect a man who 
does not respect himself ; and therefore if a Pacha of two tails 
does you the honor of a visit, you must demean yourself as if 
you were a Pacha of three. But does not the same rule hold 
good all the world over 1 

How often do we see families taking a high rank in the 
social scale, without any adventitious circumstances to back 
their pretensions, simply because they set a high value upon 
themselves, and discourage all intimacies except from aristo- 
cratic quarters ! How often, too, do we see the reverse exem- 
plified in families that have every factitious advantage, but 
which never rise in the social scale, because they never stickle 
on the score of dignity, and are ready to receive advances from 
all persons, even the humblest and most plebeian ! So the 
modest maiden links herself to some shallow coxcomb, who is 



SELF- ADVERTISING. 181 

every way unworthy of her, hut whose whole demeanor and 
conversation show that he deems her honored by his addresses. 
Indeed, it has been a standing complaint against the sex that 
they yield too readily to brazen-faced assurance, recognizing 
those virtues only that are played off like the ring on the 
finger ; that " are written as a scroll on the bold front, or 
triumph in the laughing eye." So do we often determine our 
position in less important relations, — at the festive board, or 
in the social intercourse of man with man. What is more 
common than to see the indifferent jests of a professed wag 
echoed with loud laughter, because his own lungs have begun 
to crow like chanticleer before he has uttered them, while the 
timid, self-distrusting, nervous humorist stammers out the 
wittiest conceits that are damned in the doubtful delivery, and 
excite more pity than merriment 1 Does not the empty, noisy 
debater, who puts forth the weakest arguments " with a con- 
fident brow, and a throng of words that come with more than 
impudent sauciness from him," too often carry off the palm 
with the multitude in preference to the logical reasoner, who, 
by his less positive and assured manner, his qualifications 
and hair-splittings, awakens a doubt of the strength of his 
convictions 1 

Look, again, at the literary world : is it not true here also, 
that, as La Bruyere says, on ne vaut que ce qu'on vent valoir ? 
For a respectable niche in the temple of fame, it is not enough 
to have real abilities alone ; one must add that self-assurance 
which will lead him to aim at high ends, and to assert his 
claims before the public. " If you wish to pass for a great 
author," says Hazlitt, " you ought not to look as if you were 
ignorant that you had ever written a sentence or discovered a 
single truth. If you keep your own secret, be assured the 
world will keep it for you." The same writer tells an amusing 
story of a literary man, who, after having written upwards of 
sixty columns of original matter for a leading London paper on 
politics, criticism, belles-lettres, etc., was told, at the end of six 
months, on applying to the editor for a renewal of his engage- 



182 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

ment, that " he might give in a specimen of what he could do ! " 
The trouble was, says Hazlitt, he had, while .thinking of his 
literary matters, neglected " to point the toe," to hold up his 
head higher than usual (having acquired a habit of poring 
over books when young), and to get a new velvet collar to an 
old-fashioned great-coat. These are the graceful ornaments to 
the columns of a newspaper, the Corinthian capitals of a pol- 
ished style ! " Don't you remember," says Gray, in one of his 

letters, " Lord C and Lord M , who are now great 

statesmen, little dirty boys playing at cricket 1 For my own 
part, I don't feel myself a bit taller or older or wiser than I did 
then." It is no wonder that a poet who thought in this man- 
ner of himself was hunted from college to college ; that he left 
so few precious specimens of his fine powers, and shrunk from 
his reputation into a silent grave. 

Take, again, the learned professions. Paul Louis Courier 
tells us that the greatest Greek scholar of his time, from his 
lack of worldly tact, failed to obtain any of the appointments 
destined for scholars ; while his successful rival — Greek pro- 
fessor, Greek librarian, Greek academician — saw that study 
led to nothing, and preferred having ten scholars' situations to 
qualifying himself for one that he had not. The time and 
toil which the one student devoted to books the other devoted 
to ingratiating himself with the dispensers of patronage, and. 
in rendering them good offices which had no connection with 
the Greek tongue. Such is too often the result ; the scholar 
gets learning, the office-seeker position and patronage. Those 
of our readers who are familiar with the brilliant comedies of 
Sheridan will not forget his great statesman who gained his 
honors simply by a shake of the head. The gentleman passed 
through life universally feared and respected simply on the 
strength of this ominous speech : " Ah ! I could say some- 
thing; but I won't." This thunderbolt he kept always in 
reserve ; he walked through life with a loaded pistol in his 
hand, which he never discharged. At length, on his death- 
bed, he was entreated by his mourning friends not to leave the 



SELF-ADVERTISING. 18o 

world without disclosing to them the true nature of the terrible 
sarcasm which he had so long kept in store. Vainly striving 
to shake his head for the last time, as the pallor of death was 
stealing over his countenance, he feebly murmured, " Ah ! I 
could say it, but I won't," and the oracle was forever dumb. 
Is not success sometimes achieved by this oracular demeanor 1 

Again, there are two rival doctors in town, equal in learning 
and skill, and who have just begun their professional careers. 
Dr. Easy puts his card on his door and in the newspapers, and 
then sits down in his office and waits patiently for patients. If, 
fortunately, somebody is good enough to break a leg or to be 
seized with the cholera at his very door, he secures a customer ; 
otherwise he may spend years in putting knowledge into his 
head by study before he will put any money into his purse. 
Not so with Dr. Push. He has a mean opinion of the passive 
system, and not only puts up a stunning brass plate on his 
door, but gets himself puffed in the newspapers, salaams to all 
the " big wigs " of the town, dresses in the height of the fash- 
ion, talks learnedly of borborygmus and asphyxia, looks wise 
as an owl, and keeps a splendid turnout, or " two forty " horse 
and carriage, before he has a visit to make. He hires persons 
to startle his neighbors at midnight with the peals of his bell ; 
is continually called out of church ; and, more than once, has 
had his name shouted, as being instantly wanted, while attend- 
ing a concert or lecture at the Academy of Music. Instead 
of sitting down in his office and dozing over Brodie and Ma- 
gendie, he scours the streets and the whole adjoining country 
with his carriage, driving from morning till night at a killing 
pace, as if life and death hung on his steps ; and, neglecting no 
form of advertisement, is probably charging two thousand dol- 
lars a year before Dr. Easy has heard the rap of his first patient. 
Now, of the two men, Dr. Push may be the humbug ; but he 
certainly is not the fool. 

Let us not be misunderstood. While we would say to the as- 
pirant, " Be not too fastidious or over-sensitive," we do not mean, 
" Be unscrupulous." Better sink into the abyssmal depths of 



184 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

failure than give your conscience a single pang. But is there no 
medium between the two extremes, — between the noisy, bla- 
tant pretension, that is forever stunning us with proclamations of 
its own ability, and the excessive humility which " strips itself 
to a buff-jerkin, to the doublet and hose " of its real merits, and 
shrinks into a corner, frightened at the smallest shadow of its own 
fame 1 Assuredly, such a medium there is, difficult to describe 
exactly in words, but not impossible to realize in practice ; and 
at this every one who would succeed in life by honorable means 
should aim. Because there is danger of invoicing yourself above 
your real value, it does not follow that you should always under- 
rate your own worth. Because to be successful, conspicuous, 
known, you should not retire upon the centre of your conscious 
resources, you need not necessarily be always at the circumfer- 
ence of appearances. But, of the two, an excess of modesty 
is worse than an excess of pride ; for it is, in fact, an excess 
of pride in another form, only it is more hurtful to the indi- 
vidual, and less advantageous to society, than the grossest and 
most unblushing vanity. 

It is true we all patronize humility in the abstract, or, when 
enshrined in another, it worships ourselves. We love to meet 
a lowly man, who never piques our vanity, or thrusts himself 
between us and the object of our pretensions. There is no one 
who, if questioned, would not be found in the depths of his 
heart secretly to prefer the modest man, proportionally despis- 
ing the swaggerer who "goes unbidden to the head of the 
feast." But, while such is our deliberate verdict when taken 
to task in the matter, it is not the one we practically give. 
The man who entertains a stout good opinion of himself always 
contrives, somehow, to cheat us out of a corresponding one, to 
a considerable extent ; and we are too apt to acquiesce in his 
assumptions, even though they may strike us unpleasantly. 
Nor is there anything strange in this. It is but natural that 
we should yield more readily to an active than to a passive claim 
upon us. " Admiration," it has been said, " like mocking, is 
catching, and the good opinion which gets abroad of us begins 



SELF- ADVERTISING. 185 

at home." The great mass of men have no time to examine 
the merits of others. They are busy about their own affairs, 
which claim all their attention. They cannot go about hunt- 
ing for modest worth in every nook and corner ; those who 
would get their good opinion must come forward with their 
claims, and at least show their own confidence in them by back- 
ing them with vigorous assertion. If, therefore, a man of tol- 
erably fair talents arrays his pretensions before us, if he duns 
and pesters us for an admission of his merits, obtruding them 
upon us incessantly, we are forced, at last, to notice them ; and, 
unless he fairly disgusts us by the extravagance of his claims, 
shocking all sense of decency, we are inclined to admit them, 
even in preference to superior merits which their possessor, 
by never pressing them^upon our notice, seems to undervalue. 

From all this, it will not appear strange that a degree of 
assurance is so essential to success in the world. The difficulty 
is not that we do not decide fairly between the modest and the 
pretending, when we actually weigh their claims ; but we are 
constantly apt to forget the true merits, from their unobtrusive- 
ness. Unless something peculiar rouses us, we fail to notice 
them, and they are in as bad a predicament as if they had 
never existed. The self-esteeming, on the contrary, are always 
on the alert, pushing their claims wherever and whenever they 
can obtain an advantage. Believing that, as lawyers say, " con- 
tinual claim keeps alive the title to an estate," they omit no 
opportunity to enforce their pretensions, but keep them ever 
before us. By dint of continual assertion, they worry the arbi- 
ters of fame or favor out of that which their cool, unbiassed 
judgment would assign to the more humble. Besides, one 
hates to be always setting a high value upon those who set no 
value upon themselves, and who sneak away into the obscurest 
seats on all occasions. Great deeds they may have done, pos- 
sibly, evincing brilliant abilities ; but who can believe the fact, 
while they themselves never speak of them, except perhaps to 
underrate them % It is the opinion we appear to cherish of 
ourselves, from which (deeming we must be the best judges of 



186 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

our own merits) others take, in a great measure, their opinion 
of us on trust. It is taken for granted, in an age like the 
present, that every man pretends to the utmost he can do, and 
he who pretends to little is apt to be thought capable of nothing. 

In short, lowliness and " unobtrusive worth " are very pretty 
in theory, and pleasant to read of in moral disquisitions : but 
he who relies on them ; who is always crouching in a corner, 
and cannot ask for his due ; or who goes about, as Eobert 
Hall said, " with an air of perpetual apology for the unpar- 
donable presumption of being in the world ; " who never puts 
himself forward, or, if he does, does so with the forlorn hope 
with which Snug, the joiner, begs the audience to take him 
for a lion ; who cannot say that he wants anything, or can- 
not say it with sufficient loudness and pertinacity ; who can- 
not make himself prominent at the right time, though he 
knows it to be the right time, — may be a beautiful object of 
creation, very lovable, and very much to be admired, but 
must expect to be not only outstripped, but knocked, crushed, 
and trampled underfoot, in the rush and roar of this nine- 
teenth century. 

It is a common trick of persons who have failed to get on 
in the world to put on an air of injured innocence, and to 
complain of the world's injustice in conferring its honors and 
patronage on merely pushing men, while they, whose claims 
are solid, are neglected. Indeed, no old saw is oftener re- 
peated than the threadbare one about modest merit being 
neglected, while pretentious demerit is loaded with riches and 
applause. Of this stereotyped talk Washington Irving justly 
says that "it is too often a cant by which indolent and irreso- 
lute men seek to lay their want of success at the door of the 
public. Modest merit, however, is too apt to be inactive or 
negligent or uninstructed merit. Well-matured and well-dis- 
ciplined talent is always sure of a market, provided it exerts 
itself ; but it must not cower at home and expect to be sought 
for. There is a good deal of cant, too, about the success of 
forward and impudent men, while men of retiring worth are 



SELF-ADVERTISING. 187 

passed over with, neglect. But it usually happens that those 
forward men have that valuable quality of promptness and ac- 
tivity without which worth is a mere inoperative property. A 
barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion." 

The last sentence contains the whole truth in a nutshell. 
Wisely did Pythagoras enjoin his pupil to " reverence him- 
self." To think meanly of one's self, it has been truly said, 
" is to sink in one's own estimation as well as in that of others. 
As the thoughts are, so will the acts be. Man cannot aspire, 
if he look down ; if he will rise, he must look up." The 
poor Scotch weaver was therefore not very far out of the way, 
in praying daily that he might have a better opinion of him- 
self. The sum of the whole matter is, self-confidence makes 
ability available. More than this, it frequently leads to the 
very possession of the qualities only at first assumed. A man 
of the most ordinary powers, inspired and strengthened by 
this principle, will often perform a giant's labors, while with- 
out it the noblest intellect will expend itself in the triflings 
of a dwarf, and be eclipsed by inferior talent, endowed with 
little merit beyond that of mere assurance. Do not, then, ex- 
pect the world's attention or patronage while you sit in solemn 
dignity, with folded arms, in the chimney-corner. As well 
might you wait, like the rustic, for the stream to run by. In 
the closet you should undoubtedly act on the assumption that 
your intellectual attainments fall far short of what is required 
by the necessities of your station. But in the world's busy 
hum, an unshaken confidence in your own resources should be 
the firm conviction of the understanding, and the genuine feel- 
ing of the heart. Put yourself forward, then, if you would be 
known. Blow some kind of a trumpet, or a least a penny 
whistle, to draw the world's eye upon you ; but be sure that 
you are what you pretend to be, before you blow ; then, hav- 
ing entered the arena, if you fail in the athletic games, — if, to 
use Webster's language to Hayne, " the vigor and spirit of the 
attack fall short of the lofty and sounding phrase of the mani- 
festo " — woe be unto you ! But if you triumph, your fortune 
is made. 



188 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 



" There are men whose cant is simply can't." 

Nous avons plus de force que de volonte ; et c'est sou vent pour nous ex- 
cuser a nous-memes que nous nous imaginons que les choses sont impossi- 
bles. — Rochefoucauld. 

Success m most things depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed. 

— Montesquieu. 

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. 

— Confucius. 

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul. He 
that falls obstinate in his courage, si succederit de genu pu gnat ; if his legs 
fail him, fights upon his knees. — Montaigne. 

AMONG the oft- quoted maxims in our language there is 
none finer, or more replete with sterling truth, than that 
which often falls so lightly from men's lips : Where there is a 
will, there is a way. No doubt there are limits to human 
capability in all human affairs; in every sphere of activity 
men may meet with obstacles which even the utmost energy 
cannot overcome. Almost every man is more or less the vic- 
tim of circumstances, which sometimes operate so powerfully 
that it is impossible to crush his way through them. But the 
frequency with which such occasions occur is greatly over- 
estimated ; and the fact that mountains so often dwindle into 
molehills when we once resolutely determine to cross them, 
shows that, after every allowance for extraordinary cases, the 
old Saxon saw is still true generally, and that he who intensely 
wills to do a thing will find a way. An intense desire itself 
transforms possibility into reality. Our wishes are but proph- 
ecies of the things we are capable of performing ; while, on 
the other hand, the timid, feeble-willed man finds everything 
impossible because he believes it to be so. As Virgil says of 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 189 

his boatmen, men are able because they think they are able, — 
possunt quia posse videntur ; to resolve upon attainment is 
often attainment itself. We are all aware of the fact that the 
roads which we incline not to travel are all sadly beset by 
specimens of the feline tribe ; and, when a gentleman is asked 
for money by a neighbor often in need of it, he is extremely 
apt to have a large and exhausting payment to make at the 
end of the week. But when one is really determined to push 
his way along the road, opposing lions have usually little terror 
for him ; and, if he is anxious to oblige his friend, he will 
almost certainly be able to do so without breaking any of his 
own engagements. 

It is, indeed, wonderful, at times, to see what marvels are 
accomplished by men acting under the impulse of a powerful 
will. A remarkable example of this is furnished by the cap- 
tured Texans of the Santa ¥6 Expedition, who, after having 
marched until they were nearly dead with fatigue and exhaus- 
tion, yet, being told that any who should prove unable to 
walk would be shot, contrived to pluck up, and set off at a 
round pace, which they kept up all day. So Quintin Matsys, 
the famous Dutch painter, in his youth, despaired of being 
ever able to paint, till his master told him that only by pro- 
ducing a picture of merit within six months could he have his 
daughter's hand ; and then he set vigorously to work and 
brought forth " The Misers," a masterpiece of art, which con- 
noisseurs have admired for ages. It is related of a young 
French officer that he used to walk about his apartment ex- 
claming, " I will be marshal of France and a great general" ; 
and his burning desire proved a presentiment of his success. 
Smiles, in his Self-Help, tells of an English carpenter who 
was observed one day planing a magistrate's bench, which he 
was repairing, with more than usual carefulness ; and, when 
asked the reason, replied, " Because I wish to make it easy 
against the time when I come to sit upon it myself." Singu- 
larly enough, the man actually lived to sit upon that very 
bench as a magistrate. 



190 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Nearly all great men — those who have towered high above 
their fellows — have been remarkable above all things else for 
their energy of will. Of Jnlius Caesar it was said by a con- 
temporary, " Quicquid vult, valde vult " ; it was his activity 
and giant determination, rather than his military skill, that 
won his victories. A glance at Hannibal's life will show that 
a resolute will was the leading quality of that commander, 
though less conspicuous, perhaps, in him than in others, be- 
cause of the exact proportion in which all the military quali- 
ties were united in him, rendering him, by the common consent 
of soldiers as well as historians, the greatest captain the world 
has seen. His resolution to brave the whole power of Rome 
by provoking a war ; the invasion of Italy by a route which 
was a march of discovery as much as a military operation ; his 
passage of the Rhone and the Alps ; his long continuance in 
Italy, though unsupported by Carthage ; and, when at last de- 
feated and driven from the country, the zeal with which he 
sought throughout the world to raise up enemies against Rome, 
at an age when time and toil would have chilled most men's 
ardor, — are examples of the rarest determination. His stub- 
bornness of will is only rivalled by that of his enemies, the 
Romans, of whom he learned, by a captive, — after he had de- 
feated every army they had sent against him, had arrived 
within three miles of the city, and was momentarily expecting 
an offer of surrender, — that the very ground on which his 
army was encamped had just been sold in the Forum at as 
high a price as in times of peace. 

So with the great captains of modern times ; the strength of 
Suwarrow's character lay in his power of willing, and he 
" preached it up as a system." " You can only half will," he 
would say to persons who failed. It was one of Napoleon's 
principal characteristics to regard nothing as impossible. His 
marvellous successes were due not more to his vast military 
genius than to his almost superhuman strength of will. He 
toiled terribly, half killing his secretaries, and threw his whole 
force of bram and hand upon his work. " Impossible," said he, 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 191 

'"' is a word only to be found in the dictionaries of fools." When 
told that the Alps stood in the way of his armies, " There shall 
be no Alps," he replied, and the road across the Simplon was 
the result. His great adversary, Wellington, was distinguished 
by a similar inflexibility of purpose. The entire Peninsular 
campaign was but one long-continued display of an iron will, 
resolute to conquer difficulties by wearing them out. In the 
life-and-death struggle between England and France, of which 
that campaign was a part, and which lasted nearly a quarter of 
a century, it was the stubborn will of the former which tri- 
umphed in the end ; for though Napoleon defeated the British 
coalitions again and again, yet new ones were constantly formed, 
until at last the French people, if not their Emperor, were com- 
pletely worn out. And, finally, the battle of Waterloo, which 
was the climax of this stupendous struggle, was another illus- 
tration of the enormous energy, the exhaustless patience, the 
bull-dog will, of the English. In that fearful contest, French 
impetuosity and prowess proved an unequal match for English 
pluck and resolution. For eight long hours the British army 
stood up against the murderous fire of the enemy ; column after 
column fell, and the entire side of one square was literally 
blown away by a volley of grape. One sullen word of command 
ran along the line as thousands fell, "File up ! file up ! " and 
the troops silently obeyed. At length the crisis came ; the or- 
der to charge was given ; and the men who had stood like 
statues before the " iron hail " of the French artillery swept 
like a whirlwind upon the foe. 

Among the many causes of failure in life, none is more fre- 
quent than that feebleness of the will which is indicated by 
spasmodic action, — by fitful effort, or lack of persistence. Dr. 
Arnold, whose long experience with youth at Rugby gave 
weight to his opinion, declared that " the difference between one 
boy and another consists not so much in talent as in energy." 
" The longer I live," says another competent judge, Sir Thomas 
Fowell Buxton, " the more I am certain that the great differ- 
ence between men, between the great and the insignificant. 



192 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

is energy, invincible determination, an honest purpose once 
fixed, and then death or victory. This quality will do anything 
in the world ; and no talents, no circumstances, will make a 
two-legged creature a man without it." The very reputation 
of being strong-willed, plucky, and indefatigable, is of priceless 
value. It often cows enemies and dispels at the start opposi- 
tion to one's undertakings which would otherwise be formidable. 
The world sometimes yields to a man a coveted prize from pure 
admiration of his persistence in contending for it. Marcus 
Morton ran sixteen times in vain for governor of Massachu- 
setts, when some of his opponents, admiring his pluck, voted 
for him in 1840, and he was chosen by one majority. Men 
feel that it is useless to struggle against one who will never 
yield. If such a one does encounter opposition, it becomes a 
help, rather than a hindrance, to his general success. The diffi- 
culties he conquers are his stimulus and aliment ; they are his 
gymnasium and palaestra, by which his muscles are strengthened. 
It has been justly said of the poet Wordsworth, who was 
scoffed at by the critics on his first appearance, and seemingly 
was born too soon, that he came not a day too early. He had 
the difficult task of shaping the culture of a nation, and creat- 
ing his audience among those who ridiculed him ; but he con- 
quered recognition at last, and it was the very struggle with a 
world reluctant to hear him that gave him power and renown. 
When William Lloyd Garrison commenced the publication of 
the Liberator, he began with these memorable words, " I am in 
earnest, — I will not equivocate, — I will not excuse, — I will 
not retreat a single inch, — and / will be heard." He has been 
heard, — with what result the country knows. It has been 
said that you may put a Yankee on a desolate island in the 
Pacific, and only leave with him a jack-knife, and he will get 
home as soon as, if not sooner than, the ship that left him there. 
" Put him in anywhere, and he will get out if he wants to ; 
put him out anywhere, and he will get in, if he wishes to." 
This is the spirit that guarantees success in every calling and 
profession. Men moan over difficulties ; but the earnest, 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 193 

manly spirit looks upon them as opportunities for distinction. 
There is no obstacle that may not be converted into a stepping- 
stone to success by an heroic spirit. An almost total blindness 
compelled Euler to work those calculations in his mind which 
others put upon paper, and to retain in his brain those formulas 
for which others trust chiefly to books. What was the result 1 
The extent, the readiness, and exactness of his mathematical 
memory grew by this means to be so prodigious, that D'Alem- 
bert declared that even when one had witnessed it, it almost 
staggered belief. It has been well observed by a writer in the 
Quarterly Beview, that the instances in which there is a strong 
motive to attain an end show the unsuspected triumphs of 
which the understanding is capable. The reason why they are 
so rare is, that men ordinarily relax their efforts when the im- 
perative demands of life have been satisfied. There would be 
hardly any limit to improvement, if the same pains which 
they were compelled to take to gain their resting-place were 
afterwards employed in rising to fresh heights. 

It is difficult to see any advantage in mere stupidity ; yet, 
according to Sergeant Talfourd, it is no inconsiderable power in 
a lawyer. If accompanied, as it usually is, with fluency, it 
enables its possessor to protract a contest long after he is beaten, 
because he neither understands his own case nor the arguments 
by which he has been answered. Even physical defects may 
have their compensating advantages. During the late civil 
war, a Wisconsin newspaper advertised for a journeyman 
printer ; " a cripple," said the editor, " will be preferred, as he 
won't go off to the war." A volunteer from the same State, 
writing to his father from the field, expressed his thankfulness 
that he had bow-legs ; for, on the day before, he had narrowly 
escaped losing both of these limbs, a cannon-ball having passed 
harmlessly through the space occasioned by "the natural 
crook." A popular essayist observes that a squinting eye is a 
treasure to a boxer ; a left-handed batter is a prize in a cricket- 
ing eleven ; and one of the best gymnasts in Chicago is a per- 
son with a wooden leg, which he takes off at the beginning of 
9 x 



194 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

operations, thus economizing weight and stowage, and perform- 
ing feats impossible except to unipeds. It was the lameness of 
Scott and Talleyrand that made the one a poet and novelist, and 
the other a statesman and diplomatist ; and no one can doubt 
that the bitterness and morbid irritability caused by Byron's 
club-foot drove him into verse. 

It is remarkable how many of the world's great men have 
been little men. It would be a curious inquiry how far the 
distinctions attained by celebrated men have been owing to 
personal disadvantages, to an uneasy sense of personal in- 
significance. It is remarked by greyhound fanciers that a 
well-formed, compact-shaped puppy never makes a fleet dog ; 
and it is certain that many a loose-jointed, awkward, and clumsy 
man, as well as many a humpbacked and ugly-looking one, has 
found in his deformity, as Bacon long ago remarked, " a per- 
petual spur to rescue and deliver him from scorn." History is 
full of examples of pygmies, who, tormented by a mortifying 
consciousness of their physical inferiority, have been provoked 
thereby to show that their lack of flesh and blood has been 
more than made up to them in brains. Many a Liliputian in 
body has proved himself a Brobdingnagian in intellect. When 
Lord Nelson was passing over the quay at Yarmouth to take 
possession of the ship to which he had been appointed, the 
people exclaimed, " Why make that little fellow a captain ? " 
The sneer of disparagement was but a " foregone conclusion " 
in his own mind, and he thought of it when he fought the 
battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. Had Bonaparte been six 
inches higher, says Hazlitt, it is doubtful whether he would 
have gone on that disastrous Eussian expedition, or whether he 
would even have been First Consul or Emperor. It was the 
nickname of " Little Corporal " that probably first pricked the 
sides of his ambition, and stung him into that terrible activity 
which made all Europe tremble. 

Nearly all of the poets, and many of the greatest prose writers 
of ancient and modern times, have been little men. One of 
the great poets of Athens was so small that his friends fastened 




ALEXANDER POPE. 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 195 

lead to his sandals to prevent his being toppled over or blown 
away. Aristotle, as we have already remarked, was a pygmy in 
person, though a giant in intellect. Of Pope, who was so small 
and crooked as to be compared to an interrogation point, Haz- 
litt asks, " Do we owe nothing to his deformity 1 He doubt- 
less soliloquized, ' Though my person be crooked, my verses 
shall be straight.' " It was owing, doubtless, in some degree, 
to the fact that he could boast of but four feet and six inches 
in stature, that that phenomenon of the eighteenth century, the 
Abbe Galiani, owed the vast and solid erudition which Grimm 
says he joined to a luminous and profound coup oVceil. Per- 
sonally, says Marmontel, the Abbe was the prettiest little har- 
lequin that Italy ever produced ; but upon the shoulders of 
that harlequin was the head of Machiavelli. Moore, the Irish 
poet, was so small that George IV. once threatened to clap 
him into a wine-cooler. 

It is true that many persons have to begin the voyage of 
life against both wind and tide ; and it seems at times as if 
they were doomed to " wage with fortune an eternal war." 
But who ever heard of a man's failing to succeed at last in any 
business which he had stuck to faithfully for ten years together 2 
Look at Bulwer. His whole life has been a series of temporary 
failures, crowned with ultimate triumphs. His first novel was 
a failure ; his first drama was a failure ; his first poems were 
failures ; and so were his first speeches. But he fought his 
way to eminence, — fought it through defeat and ridicule, till 
now he has his own enchanted circle, where " none durst walk 
but he," and stands on one of the summits of the three-peaked 
hill, the compeer of Dickens and Thackeray. Look at Disraeli. 
From his birth the odds were against him. The child of a 
hated and branded race, he made liimself a power in the most 
conventional country in the world. Without a liberal educa- 
tion, he won the honors of literary skill and scholarship ; with- 
out aristocratic connections, he became a star of fashion in the 
most exclusive society in Europe. Coughed and hissed down 
on his first essay in Parliament, he told the House that the 



196 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

time would come when they would hear him, and he perse- 
vered until they under whose laughter he had writhed were 
made to writhe in their turn under his terrible sarcasm. Look 
at Brougham. Ranging during sixty years over the fields, not 
only of law and politics, but of science and literature, he 
triumphed in all ; and such was his love of excellence, so 
indefatigable his perseverance, that it has been said that, 
if he had begun life as a shoeblack, he would never have 
rested content till he had become the best shoeblack in 
England. 

In further illustration of the same point, we might cite the 
case of Savonarola, who broke down in his first sermon, and 
was humiliated beyond expression. Resolved, however, to 
succeed, he kept on, preaching to peasants and children, and in 
the solitude of his own chamber, till at last he acquired a 
facility of utterance and a command of striking language 
which made him the prophet of his age and the first orator in 
Italy. Robespierre, contending with the disadvantages of a 
harsh voice, an ugly face, and a hesitating tongue, failed in his 
first essays at speaking so egregiously that not one man in a 
thousand, under the circumstances, could have helped being 
disheartened ; yet by ceaseless effort he succeeded in leading 
the National Assembly of France. Mr. Cobden's first speech 
was a humiliating failure. He was nervous, confused, and 
finally broke down; yet he did not retire to a corner, and 
mope and whine, but persevered, till at last he became one of 
the most powerful speakers of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and 
extorted the praise of the accomplished Robert Peel. 

When Daniel Webster attended an academy in his boyhood, 
though he was proficient in the other branches of education, 
there was one thing, he tells us, he could not do, — he could 
not declaim before the school. " The kind and excellent 
Buckminster especially sought to persuade me to perform the 
exercise of declamation like the other boys, but I could not do it. 
Many a piece did I commit to memory, and rehearse it in my own 
room over and over again ; but when the day came, when the 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 197 

school collected, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes 
turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Some- 
times the masters frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buck- 
minster always pressed and entreated with the most winning 
kindness that I would only venture once; but I could not 
command sufficient resolution, and when the occasion was over 
I went home and wept bitter tears of mortification." 

Francis Wayland began his ministerial career under many 
discouragements. They would have crushed a feeble man, but 
only stimulated him to greater efforts. Son of an English 
currier who had abandoned a profitable trade to become a 
Baptist preacher, he gave up the profession for which he 
had partially prepared himself, and followed the example of 
his father. A single year at Andover, where he was so poor 
that he had once to choose between a coat and a copy of 
Schleusner's lexicon, summed up his study of theology; yet 
he had so faithfully improved this slender opportunity, that he 
was called to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in 
Boston. On a cold, rainy night in October, 1823, he preached 
before the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society a sermon on 
Missions. There were about fifty persons present ; the dis- 
course kindled no enthusiasm ; and with keen chagrin the 
preacher next morning flung himself upon a lounge in the study 
of a friend, exclaiming, "It was a complete failure; it fell 
perfectly dead." Luckily, among the hearers was a shrewd 
printer, a deacon in the church, who insisted that the sermon 
should be published. Against his own will, the author consented. 
The discourse — the memorable one on "The Moral Dignity 
of the Missionary Enterprise " — ran through several editions 
both in this country and in England, called forth the warmest 
encomiums of the press without distinction of sect, and 
kindled a new enthusiasm in behalf of missions throughout 
the Christian world. Eobert Hall, on reading it, predicted a 
still greater distinction for the preacher ; and only three years 
later the author, hitherto an obscure man, was elected to the 
Presidency of Brown University almost by acclamation. 



198 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

To these examples might be added those of Talma, the 
greatest of French actors ; Sheridan, the orator, who broke down 
in his first speech; and many others who failed at first as 
public speakers, and who finally succeeded only because they 
knew the eloquence was in them, and determined that it 
" should come out." Thomas Erskine, whom Lord Campbell 
pronounces the greatest advocate and most consummate forensic 
orator that ever lived, began his legal career under many dis- 
couragements. Though he had a sublime self-confidence, which 
was itself almost a sure prophecy of success, yet he fought the 
battle of life for many years up hill and against many obstacles. 
His father's means having been exhausted in educating his two 
elder brothers, he was obliged to start in life with but little 
training and a scanty stock of classical learning. While pur- 
suing his law studies he found it hard, even with the strictest 
economy, to keep the wolf from the door. For several years 
he lived on cow beef, because he could not afford to buy better, 
and was declared by Jeremy Bentham to be "so shabbily 
dressed as was quite remarkable." Conscious, all the time, 
of powers that fitted him to adorn a larger sphere, he chafed 
against the iron circumstances that hemmed him in, like an 
eagle against the bars of his cage. A chance conversation led 
to his being employed as counsel in an important case. The 
effect produced by his speech was prodigious. He won a 
verdict for his client, and by a single giant bound, overleaping 
all barriers, passed from want to abundance, from the castle of 
Giant Despair to the Delectable Mountains. Entering West- 
minster Hall that morning a pauper, he left it a rich man. As 
he marched along the hall after the judges had risen, the 
attorneys flocked around him with their briefs, and retainer 
fees rained upon him. From this time his business rapidly 
increased, until his annual income amounted to .£12,000. 

Even the most successful poets, who are born, not made, have 
failed more or less in their early productions. Byron's first 
effort was severely censured by the critics. Keats's first poem 
was a failure ; but, though damned by the critics, he did not 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 199 

feel disheartened, for he felt that the genius of poetry must 
work out its own salvation, and that by leaping headlong into 
the sea, as he did in Endymion, he had become better ac- 
quainted with the soundings, the rocks, and the quicksands, 
than if he had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly 
pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. " I was never 
afraid of failure," said he, " for I would sooner fail than not be 
among the greatest." 

It is this pluck, this bull-dog tenacity of purpose and stub- 
bornness of perseverance, that wins the battles of life, whether 
fought in the field, in the mart, or in the forum. " It is the 
half a neck nearer that shows the blood and -wins the race ; the 
one march more that wins the campaign ; the five minutes more 
of unyielding courage that wins the fight." History abounds 
with instances of doubtful battles or unexpected reverses trans- 
formed by one man's stubbornness into eleventh-hour triumphs. 
It is opinion, as De Maistre truly says, that wins battles, and 
it is opinion that loses them. The battle of Marengo went 
against the French during the first half of the day, and they 
were expecting an order to retreat, when Dessaix, consulted by 
Napoleon, looked at his watch, and said, " The battle is com- 
pletely lost ; but it is only two o'clock, and we shall have time 
to gain another." He then made his famous cavalry charge, 
and won the field. Blucher, the famous Prussian general, was 
by no means a lucky leader. He was beaten in nine battles 
out of ten ; but in a marvellously brief time he had rallied 
his routed army, and was as formidable as ever. He had his 
disappointments, but turned them, as the oyster does the sand 
which annoys it, into a pearl. 

Washington lost more battles than he won, but he organized 
victory out of defeat, and triumphed in the end. It was be- 
cause they appreciated this quality of pluck, that, when the 
battle of Cannae was lost, and Hannibal was measuring by 
bushels the rings of Eoman knights who had perished in the 
strife, the Senate of Rome voted thanks to the defeated gen- 
eral, Consul Terentius Varro, for not having despaired of the 



200 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

republic. In the vocabulary of such, men there is no such 
word as "fail." Impossibilities, so called, they laugh to scorn. 
" Impossible ! " exclaimed Mirabeau on a certain occasion ; 
" talk not to me of that blockhead of a word ! " " Impossible ! " 
echoed the elder Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, in reply to a 
colleague in office who told him that a certain thing could not 
be done ; " I trample upon impossibilities ! " Before such 
men mountains dwindle into molehills, and obstacles that seem 
unconquerable are not only triumphed over, but converted into 
helps and instruments of success by their overwhelming will. 

There was never, probably, a time in the world's history 
when high success in any profession demanded harder or more 
incessant labor than now. Men can no longer go at one leap 
into eminent position. The world, as Emerson says, is no 
longer clay, but rather iron, in the hands of its workers, and 
men have got to hammer out a place for themselves by steady 
and rugged blows. Above all, a deep and burning enthusiasm 
is wanted in every one who would achieve great ends. No 
great thing is, or can be, done without it. It is a quality that 
is seen wherever there are earnest and determined workers, — in 
the silence of the study, and amid the roar of cannon ; in the 
painting of a picture, and in the carving of a statue. Ability, 
learning, accomplishment, opportunity, are all well ; but they 
do not, of themselves, insure success. Thousands have all 
these, and live and die without benefiting themselves or others. 
Men, on the other hand, of mediocre talents, often scale the 
dizzy steeps of excellence and fame because they have firm faith 
and high resolve. It is this solid faith in one's mission, — the 
rooted belief that it is the one thing to which he has been 
called, — this enthusiasm, attracting an Agassiz to the Alps or 
the Amazon, impelling a Pliny to explore the volcano in which 
he is to lose his life, and nerving a Vernet, when tossing in a 
fierce tempest, to sketch the waste of waters, and even the wave 
that is leaping up to devour him, — that marks the heroic spirit ; 
and, wherever it is found, success, sooner or later, is almost 
inevitable. 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 201 

The lack of this stimulating and ennobling quality will ex- 
plain a large proportion of the bankruptcies and breakdowns 
in every calling of life. Men do not succeed because they do 
not put heart into their work. Too many novices are disheart- 
ened by their first failure, and are impatient to run before they 
have learned to walk. What the elder Kean said of the stage 
is applicable to every profession and art in life : " Acting does 
not, like Dogberry's reading and writing, ' come by nature ' ; 
with all the high qualities which go to the formation of a great 
exponent of the book of life (for so the stage may justly be 
called), it is impossible, totally impossible, to leap at once to 
fame. ' What wound did ever heal but by slow degrees 1 ' says 
our immortal author ; and what man, say I, ever became an 
' actor ' without a long and sedulous apprenticeship 1 I know 
that many think to step from behind a counter or jump from 
the high stool of an office to the boards, and take the town by 
storm in Eichard or Othello, is ' as easy as lying.' the born 
idiots ! they remind me of the halfpenny candles stuck in the 
windows on illumination nights : they nicker and nutter their 
brief minute, and go out unheeded. Barn-storming, my lads, 
barn-storming, — that 's the touchstone ; by that I won my 
spurs ; so did Garrick, Henderson, and Kemble ; and so, on 
the other side of the water, did my almost namesake, Lekain, 
and Talma." 

It cannot be too often repeated that it is not the so-called 
blessings of life, its sunshine and calm and pleasant experi- 
ences, that make men, but its rugged experiences, its storms, 
tempests, and trials. Early adversity, especially, is often a 
blessing in disguise. It has been observed that perhaps Ma- 
dame Maintenon would never have mounted a throne had not 
her cradle been rocked in a prison. It is the rough Atlantic 
seas, the cold, dark, winter nights, and the fierce " northers," 
that make the British and the American sailors the toughest 
and most skilful in the world. The school of adversity gradu- 
ates the ablest pupils, and the hill of difficulty is the best of all 
" constitutionals " for the strengthening of mental backbones. 



202 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

" C'est des difficultes que uaissent les miracles." 

It is the misfortune of many young persons to-day that they 
begin life with too many advantages. Every possible want of 
their many-sided nature is supplied before it is consciously felt. 
Books, teachers, mental and religious training, lectures, amuse- 
ments, clothes, and food, all of the best quality and without 
stint in quantity, — in short, the pick of the world's good 
things, and helps of every kind, — are lavished upon them, till 
satiety results, and all ambition is extinguished. What motive 
has a young man, for whom life is thus " thrice winnowed," to 
exert himself] Having supped full of life's sweets, he finds 
them palling on his taste ; having done nothing to earn its 
good things, he cannot appreciate their value. " Like a hot- 
house plant, grown weak and spindling through too much shel- 
ter and watching, he needs nothing so much as to be set in the 
open air of the world, and to grow strong with struggling for 
existence." 

Mere hardship, of course, will not make a man strong, but 
it is an important aid in the development of greatness. Want, 
confinement, opposition, roughness alternating with smooth- 
ness, difficulty with ease, storm with sunshine, sorrow with joy, 
— these constitute the discipline of life, the education which 
makes a man of a being who would otherwise be little better 
than an animal. It has been justly said that in deprivation 
alone there is untold might. Imprison a gill of water in a 
solid rock, and deprive it of heat, and it will burst its flinty 
bonds as did Samson the cords of the Philistines. Apply a 
match to a pound of powder in the open air, and it explodes 
with a harmless flash ; but confine it in a rifle-barrel, and tease 
it with the minutest spark, and it carries doom to a distant life. 
Great men can no more be made without trials, than bricks can 
be made without fire. Indeed, the freightage of a great mind 
can be estimated only by the amount of displacement it creates. 
Thousands of men are bemoaning their poverty or obscurity, 
who might have won riches or honor, had they only been com- 
pelled by early hardships to cry, with Burns, 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 203 

" Come, firm Resolve, take thou the van, 
Thou stalk of earle-hemp in man ! 

and to task to the uttermost all their faculties. 

In past ages men believed in the existence of ghosts, — a 
belief which has disappeared before the light of intelligence ; 
but the truth is, they really exist, only in a different form from 
that with which the popular imagination has invested them. 
A ghost is popularly supposed to be a soul without a body, 
fond of darkness and graveyards, and wearing a thin white 
drapery, which you can see, but not touch. Tom Hyer might 
strike through it without hitting or hurting it. A character 
in one of Dickens's novels knew a ghost " because he could see 
straight through the body to the buttons on the back of the 
coat." But the real ghost is the man who has no pluck ; no 
perseverance, firmness, or energy ; no backbone of determina- 
tion ; in short, the pigeon-livered thing, for it is not worthy 
to be called a man, that has a body without a soul. "Well has 
Shakespeare said that — 

" In the reproof of chance 
Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth, 
How many shallow bawble boats dare sail 
Upon her patient breast, making their way 
With those of nobler bulk ! 
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage 
The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold 
The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut, 
Bounding between the two moist elements, 
Like Perseus' horse ; where 's then the saucy boat, 
Whose weak, untimber'd sides but even now 
Co-rival'd greatness ? " 

After all, there is but one true way in which to meet the 
troubles and trials of life, and that is, to encounter them un- 
flinchingly. It is doubtless very pleasant to sit in some snug 
loophole of retreat, and now and then, oyster-like, cautiously 
open one's bivalves, and thank God he is not buffeting the 
billows like his fellows. Those who risk nothing can, of course, 
lose nothing ; sowing no hopes, they cannot suffer from the 
blight of disappointment. But let him who is enlisted for the 



204 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

war expect to meet the foe. Either accept the advice of the 
tawny Philip to his hesitating warrior, — "Go away with the 
children and the squaws," — or be prepared, not only for the 
contest, but for its consequences. Fortunately, adversity is 
often like a panther ; look it boldly in the face, and it turns 
cowering away from you. It is with life's troubles as with the 
risks of the battle-field ; there is always less of aggregate dan- 
ger to the party that stands firm than to that which gives way, 
— the cowards being always cut down ingloriously in the fight. 

ISTo doubt it is easier to moralize on " the uses of adversity " 
than to bear it. We are aware that it is hard to begin life 
without a dollar, hard to be poor, and harder to seem poor in 
the eyes of others. No young man, especially no young man 
in our cities, likes to make his entree in life with his boots 
patched ; to wear an antediluvian hat, and clean gloves smell- 
ing of camphene and economy ; nor to carry a cotton umbrella ; 
nor to ask a girl to marry him and live in the " sky-parlor " of 
a cheap boarding-house. We all like to drive along smoothly, 
to have a fine turnout, to have the hinges of life oiled, the 
backs padded, and the seats cushioned. But such is not the 
road to success in any profession or calling; and if you are 
poor, and feel that you cannot climb the steeps of life unas- 
sisted, — that you must be carried in a vehicle, instead of 
trudging on foot along the dusty highway, — then confess your 
weakness, and seek your Hercules in the first heiress who is as 
wanting in judgment as you in nerve and resolution. Marry 
$ 5,000 a year, if you can, and be a stall-fed ox for the remain- 
der of your days. But do not, while thus " boosted " into, 
boast of your success. Do not, while rising in the world like 
a balloon, by pressure from without instead of from within, 
fancy you have any claim to triumph. The world will touch 
its hat to you, and give you plenty of ceremonious respect ; but 
its real regard, its loftiest esteem, it will reserve for the moral 
hero who has the nerve to throw his hat into the ring, and 
fight out the battle of life in a manly and creditable way. 

There are some persons who deny that men owe their posi- 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 205 

tions in life mainly to themselves. They explain all the differ- 
ences in worldly success by the magic word " fortune." Others 
attribute all great or rare success to that indefinable quality 
which they call genius ; and, no doubt, there are native differ- 
ences in the intellectual stature of men, but not to the extremes 
imagined. There are no giants like those of Brobdingnag, nor 
pygmies like those of Liliput. It matters not what are a man's 
natural gifts ; he can never attain in any profession to high 
success, without going through with a vast deal of work which, 
taken by itself, would rightly be called drudgery ; and hence 
some one has defined genius as "an immense capacity for tak- 
ing trouble." 

What is the difference that distinguishes the musician or the 
painter from the mere amateur 1 What is it, as one has wisely 
said, "but the long-continued discipline of hand, of ear, of eye, 
which has made all the faculties of body and of mind subser- 
vient to the purposes of the art ] The man who has no such 
training may have, to begin with, the same natural faculties, 
the same genius, the same inspiration ; but they are not culti- 
vated, and they have no command over the only means by 
which their fine conceptions can be expressed. And what is 
the cultivation which such genius always needs 1 It needs un- 
wearied labor at what to another man would seem the drudgery 
of the art ; what only ceases to be drudgery because the light 
of genius is always present in every trifling act. "Nothing can 
be a greater mistake than to suppose that genius dispenses with 
labor. What genius does is to inspire the soul with a power to 
persevere in the labor that is needed ; but the greatest geniuses 
in every art invariably labor at their art far more than all others, 
because their genius shows them the value of such patient labor, 

and aids them to persist in it It is the loving labor at 

his own tasks which makes a man a thorough scholar. It is in- 
cessant practice which makes a man skilful at a game. And 
why is all this 1 Apparently because our nature is so framed 
that in this way only can any knowledge or skill or art or fac- 
ulty, or whatever else we may call that which enables us to do 



206 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

what we wish to do really well, be so worked into us as to be 
completely ours. To see how to do a thing is not enough. 
The power of really doing it implies that the needful science 
or skill shall have penetrated us through and through until we 
do instinctively, almost mechanically, all that is needed for the 
purpose ; until the little trifles which are so hard always to 
attend to, and which are so absolutely necessary to true success, 
cease to demand attention, because, indeed, it would require 
an effort not to do them ; until in all trivial matters we do the 
right thing as unconsciously, as instantaneously, as we put out 
our hands to break our fall whenever our foot slips under us 
as we walk." * 

It is almost impossible to exaggerate the wonders that may 
be wrought in a brief lifetime by intense and persistent labor 
urged on by an iron will. The enormous labor and prepara- 
tory training which men undergo for comparatively low and 
trivial accomplishments should shame the indolent and the 
supine who are engaged in noble pursuits. You will see one 
man toiling for years to draw sweet strains from a hddle- 
string, or to bring down a pigeon on the wing ; another task- 
ing his inventive powers, and torturing verbs and substantives 
like a Spanish inquisitor, to become a punster ; a third devot- 
ing half his life to acquiring the art of balancing himself on 
a rope, or of standing on his head on the top of a pole ; a 
fourth spending time enough in getting a mastery of chess to 
go through the entire circle of the sciences, and learn half a 
dozen languages. A Taglioni, to insure the agility and bounds 
of the evening, rehearses her pirouettes again and again, for 
hours together, till she falls down exhausted, and has to be 
undressed, sponged, and resuscitated ere she is conscious. 
You listen to a Jaell, a Strakosch, or other great pianist, whose 
touch seems miraculous, and, as his fingers glide rapidly over 
the keys, you almost imagine that they are instinct with 
thought and feeling oozing from their tips, as if the soul had 
ieffc its inner seat to descend into his hands. But, on inquiry, 

* Dr. Temple's Rugby Sermons. Third Series. 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 207 

you learn that from the age of six or eight to manhood he sat 
on the piano-stool from morning till night, practising almost 
without interruption, except for meals and elementary instruc- 
tion, and that incessant toil was the price of the skill which 
affects us like magic. 

Handel, the composer, had a harpsichord, every key of 
which, by incessant practice, was hollowed like the bowl of a 
spoon. "When an East-Indian is learning archery, he is com- 
pelled by his master to exercise the attitude and drawing the 
string to his ear, secundum artem, for three months together, 
before he is suffered to set an arrow. Half the intellectual 
and physical efforts which, put forth by some persons for 
petty or worthless, perhaps shameful objects, would suffice, 
in many cases, if directed to noble ends, to place them on a 
level with the great lights of the age, — the superior intelli- 
gences of art, literature, and science, — and to lay the foun- 
dation of a glory which might vie hereafter with that of " the 
mighty dead." And yet the cry of most dullards, and of 
many who are not, is, "I am too low in the scale ; it is of no 
use for me to try to rise ; I am not, and never shall be, any- 
body." But does a prisoner cling to his captivity and hug 
his fetters because his dungeon is low and dark and noisome 1 
JSTo ; he pants for the " upper air " all the more aspiringly. 
The very consciousness of his prostration should be a spur 
stimulating one to raise himself by all possible efforts. 

No man should be discouraged because he does not get on 
rapidly in his calling from the start. In the more intellectual 
professions especially, it should be remembered that a solid 
character is not the growth of a day, that the mental facul- 
ties are not matured except by long and laborious culture. To 
refine the taste, to fortify the reasoning faculty with its appro- 
priate discipline, to store the cells of the memory with varied 
and useful learning, to train all the powers of the mind sym- 
metrically, is the work of calm and studious years. A young 
man's education has been of little use to him if it has not 
taught him to check the fretful impatience, the eager haste to 



208 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

drink the cup of life, the desire to exhaust the intoxicating 
draughts of ambition, which is characteristic of Young Amer- 
ica. The motto of Gideon's fatigued but determined troop — 
Faint, yet pursuing — should be that of every earnest man 
when baffled by hindrances and discouragements. Let him 
patiently bide his time, steadily and conscientiously doing his 
daily work, that, when a great occasion comes, he may be equal 
to it. " To know how to wait" said De Maistre, " is the great 
secret of success." 

It is now well known that the Duke of Wellington, when a 
subaltern, was anxious to retire from the army, where he de- 
spaired of advancement, and actually applied to the Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland for a commissionership of customs. Yet he 
conquered success at last, as did the immortal Havelock, who 
lived in comparative obscurity till he was far advanced in 
life, and who, ten years before his death, could not have an- 
ticipated that he would ever gain a name in history. But 
when the auspicious moment came, a few months only sufficed 
to build up that edifice of success and fame for which his 
whole previous life had been a training. Ten years ago Moltke 
was unknown to the world, though he had already reached the 
mature age of sixty-one. Yet he had no less genius then than 
when by his masterly combinations he was humbling Austria, 
or winning more brilliant triumphs in the late campaign against 
France. 

Some of the most successful lawyers have passed many years 
in obscurity before their abilities were recognized. When the 
late Mr. Chitty was consulted by an anxious father about the 
qualifications of the bar, he asked, " Can your son eat saw- 
dust without butter 1 " Sir Samuel Eomilly, one of the most 
distinguished chancery lawyers of England, had made no 
progress in his legal career at the end of his sixth or seventh 
circuit. " When a man first makes his appearance in court," 
says he, "no attorney is disposed to try the experiment whether 
he has any talents ; and when a man's face has become familiar 
by his long having been a silent spectator of the business done 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 209 

by others, his not being employed is supposed to proceed from 
his incapacity, and is alone considered as sufficient evidence 
that he must have been tried and rejected." In spite of this 
inauspicious beginning, Eomilly attained at last to a success 
which his wildest and most sanguine dreams had never painted 
to him, gaining an income of <£ 8,000 or ,£9,000 a year. 

John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, rose at first slowly to 
distinction. While studying law at London, he rose at four 
every morning and studied till late at night, binding a wet 
towel round his head to keep himself awake. Too poor to 
study under a special pleader, he copied out three folio volumes 
from a manuscript collection of precedents. When finally 
called to the bar, he hung long about the courts without 
employment. His prospects were so gloomy that he meditated 
leaving the metropolis and settling down as a provincial bar- 
rister in Newcastle, where a comfortable house in High Street 
was his castle in air. It was agreed between him and his wife 
that whatever he got during the first eleven months should be 
his, and whatever he got in the twelfth month should be hers. 
" What a stingy dog," he says, " I must have been to have 
made such a bargain ! I would not have done so afterwards. 
But, however, so it was ; and how do you think it turned out ? 
In the twelfth month I received half a guinea ; eighteen 
pence went for fees, and Bessy got nine shillings ; in the other 
eleven months I got not one shilling." 

In the second year of his profession, " business," wrote the 
elder brother, William, to the second, Henry, "is very dull 
with poor Jack, — very dull indeed ; and, of consequence, he 
is not very lively. I heartily wish that business may brisken 
a little, or he will be heartily sick of his profession. I do all 
I can to keep up his spirits, but he is very gloomy." Early in 
the third year occurred a case which laid the foundation of his 
fame. As he left Westminster Hall, a respectable solicitor 
touched him on the shoulder, and said, "Young man, your 
bread and butter is cut for life." In about eight years from 
his call to the bar he was on the high road to its highest honors. 



210 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

During the six years lie was attorney-general, his annual emol- 
uments varied from £ 10,000 to £ 12,000. 

After he had become Lord Chancellor, an application was 
made to him one day for an order to allow a young man an 
income of two hundred a year out of an estate in dispute. 
" Young gentleman." said Lord Eldon, seeing the applicant in 
court, " I hope that you will reflect that tins is a very critical 
order I am making in your favor. This sum may furnish 
opportunity to talent, or it may paralyze all exertions. If I 
had had a certain two hundred a year at your age, I should 
not now be sitting where I am." When Wilberforce asked the 
Chancellor's advice about the best mode of study for the young 
Grants, to fit them for the bar, — "I have no rule to give 
them," was the reply, " but that they must make up their minds 
to live like a hermit and work like a horse." Happily, it has 
been said, the hermit-and-horse life need not be long, or it 
would be better to turn galley-slave. 

Lord Kenyon and Lord Thurlow began their legal careers 
under circumstances similar to those of Eldon. The two used 
to dine together, in vacation, at a small eating-house near 
Chancery Lane, London, where their meal was supplied to 
them at sevenpence-halfpenny a head. Lord Camden, though 
a judge's son, went the Western Circuit for ten or twelve years 
without success, and at last resolved on trying one circuit more, 
and then retiring upon Ins fellowship. A legal friend, hearing 
of this resolution, contrived to get him retained as his own 
junior in a cause of some importance, and then absented him- 
self on the plea of illness. Camden won the cause, and thence- 
forth was on the high road to prosperity and fame. 

Lord Ellenborough's early experience at the bar was yet 
more painful than that of any of the great men we have named. 
The son of a bishop, and a wrangler at Cambridge, he was an 
eminently proud man, perfectly conscious of his superiority ; 
yet, as a student, he resolutely submitted to all that drudgery 
without which no man can become a great lawyer, however he 
may distinguish himself as an advocate. Writing from the 



THE WILL A]$I) THE WAY. 211 

Inner Temple at this time to a college friend, Archdeacon Coxe, 
he says : " Let us cheerfully push our -way in our different 
lines : the path of neither of us is strewed with roses, but they 
will terminate in happiness and honor. I cannot, however, 
now and then help sighing, when I think how inglorious an 
apprenticeship we both of us serve to ambition, while you 
teach a child his rudiments, and I drudge the pen for attorneys. 
But if knowledge and a respectable situation are to be purchased 
only on these terms, I, for my part, can readily say, Hac mercede 
placet. Do not commend my industry too soon ; application 
wears for me, at present, the charm of novelty ; upon a longer 
acquaintance, I may grow tired of it." He did not tire of it, 
however, for he possessed, to a degree that is rarely exhibited 
even by the resolute, an indomitable will ; and when distaste, 
disinclination, or weariness crept over him, as they will, at 
times, over the most determined men, he would write and set 
before Ins aching eyes, " Read or starve ! " three monosyllables 
which have achieved as many miracles as even the magic word 
" Failure ! " For many years he found little to do as a legal 
practitioner, till, through a family connection, he was employed 
in the defence of AVarren Hastings, when he was repaid for 
years of toil and privation by rising at once to distinction. 

Lord Campbell, late Lord Chancellor of England, rose slowly 
and after many struggles to his high position, having been 
compelled by poverty to report for the press while qualifying 
himself for the practice of the law. At the beginning of his 
career, he used to walk from county town to county town when 
on circuit, being unable to afford the luxury of riding. Lord 
Mansfield came to the bar with a brilliant reputation for schol- 
arship and eloquence, yet even he did not scale the rugged 
steeps of fame and honor at once. He used to say that he 
knew no interval between no income and three thousand pounds 
a year. Xot a few years had elapsed since his call to the bar, 
and he had found no opportunity of displaying his abilities, 
when his senior in a case, Sergeant Eyre, as the tradition goes, 
was seized with a fit, and the conduct of the case devolved on 



212 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Murray. Obtaining, by the favor of the presiding judge, a short 
adjournment, he made so admirable a speech that clients rushed 
to him in crowds. 

The experience of medical practitioners is not unlike that 
of lawyers. Men of the highest ability have read and observed 
for years in poverty and obscurity before they have gained a 
respectable practice. In 1788 a medical student at Edinburgh 
University lived in the third story of a house in Bristol Street, 
in a room which cost him six shillings and sixpence a week. 
In after life, when swaying the surgical sceptre of England as 
Sir Astley Cooper, his professional income in a single year 
amounted to £ 23,000 ; and yet, during the first twelve months 
after he had settled down in London, his private practice 
yielded but five guineas. It is much the same in all professions 
and callings. It costs many a hard struggle to earn one's bare 
expenses, at first ; but when the tide is turned, the dollars 
come rolling in like an avalanche, "not in single spies, but 
in battalions." Nothing, said Talleyrand, is so successful as 
success. 

Nearly all of the world's great scholars, artists, authors, and 
philosophers, as well as the men who have become famous by 
the invention of new processes, or the improvement of old 
sciences, have forced their way to distinction against many 
trials and discouragements. Dr. Adam Clarke, the well-known 
Wesleyan commentator, was the son of a poor Irish school- 
master. When at the age of twenty he sought in England 
employment as a preacher, his slender pecuniary outfit was 
soon reduced to three halfpence ; yet, with this sum in his 
pocket, he was able to say to Wesley, " I wish to do and be 
what God pleases," and was sent at once to his work. The 
labor he did for many years was of the humblest and most 
laborious kind ; yet he adhered resolutely to the advice given 
him by Wesley, " to cultivate his mind so far as his circum- 
stances would allow, and never to forget anything he had ever 
learned." Having acquired some knowledge of Oriental tongues, 
he began to wish earnestly for a polyglot Bible ; but three 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 213 

pounds per quarter and his food, which was the whole of his 
income as a preacher, could ill supply any sum for the purchase 
of books. Unexpectedly he received a bank-note for ten 
pounds from a friend, and exclaiming, " Here is the polyglot," 
wrote to London for a copy, which he obtained for exactly ten 
pounds, from which time his progress in his favorite studies 
was extremely rapid. He denied the possibility of having too 
many irons in the fire, and, writing to a friend, playfully said : 
" I think it strange that you are of the opinion that we cannot 
carry on consentaneously two or three languages at a time. If 
I could not do so, I think I should be tempted to run out into 
the street, and dash the place where the brains should be against 
the first post I met." 

It is related of Dr. Adam, the distinguished rector of the 
High School of Edinburgh, that when at college he had to be 
content with a penny roll for his dinner. Similar to those of 
Dr. Adam and Dr. Clarke, though more severe, were the early 
trials of Samuel Drew. At the age of ten he was apprenticed 
to a shoemaker, a calling which he continued to follow long 
after he had become celebrated as an author. For days and 
days together in his early life he was too poor to spend even a 
penny for his dinner ; and he was accustomed, when dinner-time 
came, to tie his apron-string tighter to lessen the pang of hun- 
ger, and go on with his work till evening. Through years of 
hardship and drudgery his courage never forsook him ; amidst 
ceaseless labor he strove unremittingly to improve his mind, 
studying astronomy, history, and metaphysics ; and finally, 
from the humblest circumstances, he rose to occupy a conspicu- 
ous place in England as an author, a philosopher, and a meta- 
physician. The notice of a metaphysician brings to mind the 
history of the late Sir Wilham Hamilton, who, notwithstand- 
ing his great ability and encyclopaedic erudition, did not find, 
till his forty-eighth year, the position for which he was so pre- 
eminently qualified, and to which he may be said to have had 
a natural right, namely, a university chair. For six and 
twenty years he competed unsuccessfully for poorly paid chairs 



214 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

in Scotland, and though at forty recognized as the most learned 
scholar of his day in the history of philosophy, was elected finally 
only by a majority of four votes over a competitor far inferior. 

The history of authorship is a history of struggles, privations, 
and trials rarely equalled in any other calling. Many of the 
books which have sold most rapidly, or won the highest repu- 
tation for their authors, went a long time begging for publishers. 
The life of Balzac, the French author, whose brilliant abilities 
won for him at last such wealth, fame, and influence in France, 
is a type of many a literary career. At the age of twenty his 
wealthy parents wished to make him a notary. He announced 
his determination to become an author. " But," urged the 
father, " do you not know to what state the occupation of a 
writer will lead you 1 In literature a man must be either king 
or a hodman." " Yery well," replied Balzac, " / will be king ! " 
The family left town ; the youth was left to his fate in a garret, 
with the magnificent allowance of twenty-five francs a month. 
The first ten years he fought with poverty and all its evils ; the 
second decade made him his own master. These ten years, 
says a writer in a British magazine from which we gather these 
facts, were years of glory, wealth, and luxury. He had really 
won the literary crown, as in youth he predicted. But it was 
won by dint of labor such as ordinary men can scarcely con- 
ceive ; and, in his passage to his goal of success, he went 
through all the terrible vicissitudes of poverty, debt, and con- 
tention. His later residences were palaces, richly decorated 
with the choicest furniture that uould be procured; full of 
beautiful and rare pictures, statuary, and valuable curiosities. 
During his career he had seven different residences. The first 
was the bare garret in the Eue Lesdiguieres, where in silence, 
in hunger, and in the deepest poverty, his genius consolidated 
itself. 

The most successful men in America, both in early and in 
later times, have nearly all fought their way to wealth or 
distinction against formidable obstacles. Rumford, Franklin, 
Eittenhouse, Patrick Henry, Bowditch, Clay, Webster, Jack- 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 215 

son, Douglas, Lincoln, Grant, were all the sons of poor parents. 
Senator Wilson, who was for a long time a shoemaker, said 
recently, in addressing the people of Great Falls, X. H. : "I 
was born here in your county. I was born in poverty. Want 
sat by my cradle. I know what it is to ask a mother for bread 
when she has none to give. I left my home at ten years of 
age, and served an apprenticeship of eleven years, receiving a 
month's schooling each year, and, at the end of eleven years' 
hard work, a yoke of oxen and six sheep, which brought me 
eighty-four dollars. A dollar would cover every penny I spent 
from the time I was born until I was twenty-one years of age. 
I know what it is to travel weary miles and ask my fellow-men 
to give me leave to toil. I remember that in September. 1833, 
I walked into your village from my native town, and went 
through your mills seeking employment. If anybody had 
offered me eight or nine dollars a month, I should have accepted 
it gladly. I went down to Salmon Falls, I went to Dover, I 
went to Xewmarket, and tried to get work, without success ; 
and I returned home weary, but not discouraged, and put my 
pack on my back, and walked to the town where I now live, 
and learned a mechanic's trade. The first month I worked 
after I was twenty-one years of age, I went into the woods, 
drove team, cut mill-logs, and chopped wood ; and though I rose 
in the morning before daylight, and worked hard until after 
dark at night, I received for it the magnificent sum of two 
dollars. And when I got the money, those dollars looked to 
me as large as the moon looks to-night." 

Thurlow Weed, for a long time one of the most influential 
editors and politicians of the country, published recently a 
sketch of his early life, in which he thus speaks of his efforts 
at self-culture. " Many a farmer's son has found the best 
opportunities for mental improvement in his intervals of leisure 
while tending ' sap bush.' Such, at any rate, was my own 
experience. At nights you had only to feed the kettles and 
keep up the fires, the sap having been gathered and the wood 
cut ' before dark.' During the day we would always lay in a 



216 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

good stock of ' fat pine,' by the light of which, blazing bright 
before the sugar-house, in the posture the serpent was con- 
demned to assume as a penalty for tempting our great first 
grandmother, I passed many and many a delightful night in 
reading. I remember in this way to have read a history of 
the French Eevolution, and to have obtained from it a better 
and more enduring knowledge of its events and horrors, and 
of the actors in that great national tragedy, than I have re- 
ceived from all subsequent reading. I remember also how 
happy I was in being able to borrow the book of a Mr. Keyes, 
after a two-mile tramp through the snow, shoeless, my feet 
swaddled in remnants of a rag-carpet." 

Henry Ward Beecher, the most eloquent and popular 
preacher in the world, began preaching in an obscure town 
in Indiana to a church of nineteen members. The building in 
which he delivered his sermons would not hold over a hundred 
and fifty people ; it had no lamps, and no hymn-books ; and 
the whole congregation could hardly raise from two hundred to 
two hundred and fifty dollars salary. " There was nobody in 
the church to light the lamps," he says in a late lecture at New 
Haven, " and they could not afford to get a sexton. Such a 
thing was unknown in the primitive simplicity of that Hoosier 
time. Well, I unanimously elected myself to be the sexton. 
I swept out the church, trimmed the lamps and lighted them. 
I was, literally, the light of that church. I did n't stop to 
groan about it or moan about it, but I did it." 

The most successful editors in this country have graduated, 
not from a college, but from a printing-office. The history of 
Horace Greeley, the editor-in-chief of the most powerful and 
widely circulated political journal in America, is familiar to 
all. He began life at the bottom of the ladder, and reached 
the top by his own efforts, without asking help from friends 
or relatives. The early life of James Brooks, the editor and 
proprietor of the New York Daily Express, as detailed by a 
leading religious journal,* is a type of the triumphant conten- 

* The New York Independent. 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 217 

tion with obstacles by which many a poor boy has found his 
way to the editorial chair or to a seat in Congress. Mr. Brooks 
began his career as a clerk in the village of Androscoggin, 
Me., where he was to remain till twenty-one years of age, 
when, by contract, he was to receive as capital from his em- 
ployer a hogshead of New England rum. Unfortunately for 
his employer and the hogshead of rum, the town library was 
kept in the " store," of which the clerk made a liberal use. 
His first venture in business enabled him to save money 
enough to pay one dollar a week for his board, while a kind 
gentleman assisted him to go to school. As soon as he knew 
enough to teach school, he began as a pedagogue on the liberal 
salary of ten dollars per month and his board. In a year he 
was rich enough to enter Waterville College. ' Studying and 
teaching by turns, he graduated at the end of two years, carry- 
ing his trunk to the stage-office, as he did when he entered, to 
save a few of his hard-earned and scanty shillings. From this 
hour he provided a home for his mother and her two younger 
children, his father having died in his childhood. 

Mr. Brooks next studied law with the noted John ISTeal, of 
Portland, taught school, and at the same time wrote a series 
of anonymous letters for the Portland Advertiser, a daily Whig 
paper, which were so popular that its proj^rietor made him an 
offer of five hundred dollars per year to write constantly for 
his journal. At this time, though only twenty years old, he 
had become one of the most popular and eloquent orators of 
his State. After serving in the Legislature of Maine, in con- 
nection with his editorial duties on the Portland Advertiser 
he went to Washington in 1832, and began the series of 
letters which for the first time caught up and reflected in clear 
and brilliant light the multiform life of the American capital. 
The letters became immediately popular, and were copied by 
the press from Maine to Louisiana. One of the most signal 
proofs of their brilliancy and power is to be found in the words 
of Senator Wilson : " I shall never forget what those letters 
were to me. The first I had ever read, they came to me in my 

10 



218 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

obscurity and poverty as the revelation of an unknown and won- 
derful life. They made me want to go to Washington. They 
made me feel that I must go there, and see the men and 
witness the national scenes which I read about in these 
letters." 

Subsequently Mr. Brooks wrote a series of letters from the 
Southern States ; then visited Europe, and, travelling on foot 
through the principal countries, sent home to the Portland 
Advertiser letters depicting almost every phase of life, from 
that seen in the palace of the nobleman to the cottage of the 
peasant. Next he started the New York Express, carrying it 
alone for years under a heavy load of debt and discouragement, 
— acting as leading editor, reporter, day editor, night editor, and 
even type-setter, — and in 1849 was elected to Congress as a 
representative of New York City, a place which, with the excep- 
tion of a single term, he has held ever since. In that place he 
has distinguished himself by his eloquence and high legislative 
qualities, representing in the House, it is said, the type of cul- 
ture and oratory of which Mr. Sumner is the exemplar in the 
Senate. 

Even those successful men who have begun their professional 
careers in America under favorable circumstances have not 
gone through the battle of life unscathed. They all bear in 
their faces and bodies the scars of the fighting-man, — the 
signs of desperate conflict. Such was emphatically the case 
with Eufus Choate, as his haggard face and trembling, nervous 
frame too plainly showed ; and such, if we may trust a reporter 
of a New York paper, is the case with one of the most brilliant 
lawyers of that city : "In that pale and almost emaciated face," 
says the writer, " that fragile enwrapment of body which seems 
shaken with the earnestness of its own talk under the picture 
of Humboldt at the mantel-piece, is packed that library of 
knowledge and that fiery concentration of eloquent speech 
which, collectively, make up the product among men called 
"William M. Evarts. He looks like a man whom his soul has 
burned up with its own intensity till all that was inflammable 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 219 

lias exhaled, — - leaving a thin asbestos body, and a face lit up 
with great, weird, far-seeing eyes. He seldom laughs, but he 
is not ungenial, — only so immeasurably in earnest that he has 
no time to laugh." 

It is true that in every calling one meets sometimes with 
obstacles that seem utterly insurmountable, — obstacles which 
baffle for a time the sagacity and energy of the most determined 
men, and almost compel them to give up in despair. But nil 
despera?idum ; do not give up, reader, while you have health 
and strength, however dark your present prospects. The cir- 
cumstances which now obstruct and hem you in (circumstances 
are made of india-rubber for strong men, of iron for weak men,) 
may give way, if you keep on. " Go ahead," — keep push- 
ing, — and a passage will by and by open, as if by magic, 
before you, and your little bark of hope and adventure will 
pass through unharmed, as did Dr. Kane's boats more than 
once through horrible cliffs of ice on either side, which threat- 
ened to crush them in a moment. It has been observed that 
in going through the Xotch of the White Mountains the road 
seems frequently to the traveller to be shut in by frowning pre- 
cipices, so as to render further progress impossible ; but, as he 
nears the obstacles, he finds the path curving gracefully and 
safely along the terrace cut for it through the gorge. So the 
fearful obstructions that bid defiance to our progress in life are 
generally only apparent, and will vanish as soon as we confront 
them. 

Even if battling with inward disease, as well as with outward 
foes, you may, with a heroic spirit, triumph in the end. Men 
have cured themselves of painful diseases by a herculean effort of 
the volition, and physicians always count upon a cheerful, hope- 
ful frame of mind in their patients as one of the most important 
agencies in effecting a restoration to health. Aaron Burr laid 
aside a wasting fever like a garment, to join the expedition 
against Quebec. One of the greatest generals of the Thirty 
Years' AVar was Torstenson. On account of his sufferings from 
the gout, he was usually carried about in a litter ; yet the 



220 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

rapidity of his movements was the astonishment of the world. 
When Douglas Jerrold, being very sick, was told by his physi- 
cian that he must die, "What!" he said, "and leave a 
family of helpless children 1 I worCt die ! " and die he did 
not for several years. When were the prospects of any man 
gloomier than those of Wolfe just before he captured Quebec % 
From his early youth he had suffered severely from a fatal 
disease, and the seeds of others were deep laid in his constitu- 
tion. He had been severely repulsed in an attack on Montcalm's 
intrenchments south of Quebec ; his troops were dispirited ; 
the promised auxiliaries under Amherst and Johnson had failed 
to arrive; and he himself, through the fatigue and anxiety 
preying on his delicate frame, fell violently ill of a fever. Par- 
tially recovering his health, he writes to the government at 
home, as if to prepare the public mind in England for his 
failure or retreat, a letter full of gloom, concluding thus : "I 
am so far recovered as to do business, but my constitution is 
entirely ruined, without the consolation of having done any 
considerable service to the state, or without the prospect of it." 
Within five days only from the date of that letter, the Heights 
of Abraham had been scaled, Montcalm defeated, the seemingly 
impregnable fortress surrendered, and the name of Wolfe had 
become immortal to all ages ! 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 221 



CHAPTEE XY. 

THE WILL AND THE WAY (continued). 

Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high, 

So shall thou humble and magnanimous be. 
Sink not in spirit ; who aimeth at the sky 
Shoots higher much than he that means a tree. 

George Herbert. 

Kites rise against, not with, the wind No man ever worked his 

passage anywhere in a dead calm. — John Neal. 

No man can end with being superior, who will not begin with being in- 
ferior. — Sydney Smith. 

"Les existences foibles vivent dans les douleurs au lieu de les changer en 
apothegmes d'experience. Elles s'en saturent et s'usent en retrogradant 
chaque jour dans les malheurs consommes. Oublier, c'est le grand secret des 
existences fortes et cr^atrices, — oublier a la maniere de la Nature, qui ne se 
connait point de passe, qui recommence a toute heure les mysteres de ses 
indefatigables enfantements ." 

A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician 
tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. — E. P. Whipple. 

""VTOT only perseverance is necessary to worldly success, but 
Jl.1 patience also, or a willingness to bide one's time. In- 
deed, of all the lessons that humanity has to learn in this school 
of the world, the hardest is to wait. Not to wait with folded 
hands that claim life's prizes without previous effort, but, 
having toiled and struggled, and crowded the slow years with 
trial, to see then no results, or perhaps disastrous results, and 
yet to stand firm, to preserve one's poise, and relax no effort, — 
this, it has been truly said, is greatness, whether achieved by 
man or woman. The world cannot be circumnavigated by one 
wind. The grandest results cannot be achieved in a day ; the 
fruits that are best worth plucking usually ripen the most 
slowly ; and therefore every one who would gain a solid success 
must learn "to labor, and to wait." It is said that a tran- 



222 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

scendentalist, after years of profound speculation, came to the 
conclusion " to accept the universe," — an example which 
common natures would do well to imitate. 

As " temper is nine tenths of Christianity," so cheerfulness 
and steady labor are nine tenths of practical wisdom. A sunny 
disposition is the very soul of" success, enabling a man to do 
double the labor that he could without it, and to do it with 
half the physical and mental exhaustion. Yet nothing is 
more common than for men to be dissatisfied with their call- 
ings, and grumble because they are chained to them by the 
necessity of getting a living. Losing all interest in their work ? 
they go shifting about from this business to that, following 
nothing long enough to make it pay, but just long enough to 
see that it, too, has its thorns, perplexities, and vexations, and 
finally landing in the grave or the poor-house. While it is 
true that the round man sometimes gets into the square hole, 
yet, after having spent years in getting used to it, it is often 
better to remain there than to try to better himself. Generally 
there cannot be a greater error than to be constantly changing 
one's calling or business. As capital tends always to an equilib- 
rium in profits, one kind of business pays in the long run just 
as well as another. 

Look around you, reader, among your acquaintances, and 
you will find that nearly all the successful men have stuck 
resolutely to one pursuit. Two lawyers, for example, begin to 
practise at the same time. One gives all his energies to his 
profession, lays in day by day a stock of legal learning, labors 
conscientiously upon the few cases he has, and waits patiently 
for years before he finds an opportunity to demonstrate his 
skill and erudition. The other, impatient of neglect and 
despairing of clients, plunges into politics, becomes an insurance 
agent, or engages in speculation. At the end of twenty years 
the latter will be without property and in debt, while the 
former will have a profitable and growing practice, and will 
count his thousands in bank stocks, government bonds, or 
mortgages. So in the mechanical professions. The same rest- 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 223 

less, uneasy, discontented spirit which sends a mechanic from 
the East to the South, the Bocky Mountains, or California, 
renders continuous application anywhere irksome to him ; and 
so he goes wandering about the world, a half-civilized Arab, 
getting the confidence of nobody, and almost sure to die 
insolvent. 

Every man who would get on should try to put heart into 
everything that he does. Macaulay tells us that the political 
party to which Halifax belonged was the party which at that 
moment he liked least, because it was the party of which at 
that moment he had the nearest view ; and so every calling 
has its peculiar cares, anxieties, and vexations, which seem 
more numerous and trying than those of any other. To fly 
from them is only to exchange them for a different and perhaps 
more teasing class. Troubles in some form are incident to 
man's imperfection. It is therefore the very wantonness of 
folly to search them out, and brood over and magnify them. 
" Worry kills more men than work." The petty trials of life, 
if suffered to wear upon a man, often weaken more than great 
afflictions, as the ship that will survive a hard thump may be 
sunk by tiny insects boring through her timbers. There is 
nothing, it has been well said, like heart-varnish to cover up the 
innumerable evils and defects of life. Cultivate cheerfulness, 
then ; the spectres of neglect, unkindness, and despair will fly 
before it as fogs before the sun. Is your situation uncongenial'? 
Do as Sydney Smith did when laboring as a poor parish priest 
at Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire. "lam resolved," he said, " to 
like it, and reconcile myself to it, which is more manly than to 
feign myself above it, and to send up complaints by the post 
of being thrown away, and such like trash." There is no pro- 
fession so forbidding, no work so crabbed, that a man who 
strives to extract the utmost happiness from it may not twine 
about it the roses of fancy, and hide the most of its thorns. 
" There is always hope," says Carlyle, "in a man that actually 
and earnestly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual 
despair." 



224 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

History and biography abound with examples of signal 
patience shown by great men under trying circumstances. 
The Chinese tell of one of their countrymen, a student, who, 
disheartened by the difficulties in his way, threw down his book 
in despair ; when, seeing a woman rubbing a crowbar on a stone, 
he inquired the reason, and was told that she wanted a needle, 
and thought she would rub down the crowbar till she got it 
small enough. Provoked by this example of patience to " try 
again," he resumed his studies, and became one of the three 
foremost scholars in the empire. The gentle words of Sir Isaac 
Newton to his dog Diamond, when it upset a lighted taper on 
his desk, by which the laborious calculations of yea#s were de- 
stroyed, are familiar to all. A like mischance befell Thomas 
Carlyle, when he had finished the first volume of his French 
Revolution. He lent the manuscript to a friend for perusal, 
and it having been left, by some carelessness, on the parlor 
floor, the maid-of-all-work, finding what she supposed to be a 
bundle of waste paper, used it to light the kitchen and parlor 
fires. The first composition of the book had been a labor of 
love ; the drudgery of rewriting it, with no help but memory, 
was contemplated by the author with a degree of anguish which 
it is not easy to conceive. Yet, without wasting time in plaints, 
he set resolutely to work, and at last triumphantly reproduced 
the book in the form in which it now appears. A similar 
anecdote is told of Robert Ainsworth, a celebrated writer and 
antiquary of the eighteenth century. He had toiled for years 
in compiling a voluminous dictionary of the Latin language, 
during which time he gave so little of his society to his wife, 
that, before he had quite completed the work, she committed it 
to the flames. Instead of abandoning himself to despair, he 
began at once to rewrite the book, which, with almost incredible 
labor, he finally accomplished. 

The patience of two of our own countrymen was put to an 
equally severe test. When Edward Livingston had finished 
his great code of Louisianian law, he had the anguish of be- 
holding the labor of long years perish instantly in the flames ; 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 225 

yet he was not disheartened, but patiently recommenced and 
reperformed his herculean task. After Audubon had wandered 
and toiled for years to get accurate representations of American 
birds, he found that two Norwegian rats had in a night destroyed 
two hundred of his original drawings, containing the forms of 
more than a thousand of the inhabitants of the air. All were 
gone but a few bits of gnawed paper, upon which the thieving 
rascals had reared a family of their young. " The burning 
heat," says the noble-hearted sufferer, " which instantly rushed 
through my brain was too great to be endured without affect- 
ing the whole of my nervous system. I slept not for several 
nights, and the days passed like days of oblivion, until the 
animal powers being called into action, through the strength 
of my constitution, I took up my gun, my note-book, and my 
pencils, and went forward to the woods as gayly as if nothing 
had happened." He set to work again, pleased that he might 
now make better drawings than before, and in three years, by 
his indomitable energy, his portfolio was refilled. 

There are some professions and some places in which patience 
is peculiarly requisite to success. It is said that in London the 
faculty of sitting still on a chair is largely rewarded. Men ob- 
tain great emoluments because they are forty years of age and 
upwards. Medical men, we know, get trusted, simply because 
their names have appeared for twenty years on the same brass 
plates on the same weather-beaten doors. A young attorney's 
most brilliant speech stands but little chance by the side of a 
graybeard's prosy argument. Even this faculty of sitting still, 
however, — often the hardest thing to do, — can be educed only 
by culture ; and, in general, the old adage is true, that there is 
no excellence or rare success without great labor. " Pigeons 
ready roasted," said the author of that exquisite musical com- 
position, Midsummer Mght's Dream, to a friend, " do not fly 
into the mouths of the most talented artists. As a rule, you 
must first catch, pluck, and roast them." Even the gold of 
Colorado exacts hard work. It cannot be picked up like the 
stones in the streets, nor is it to be coaxed out with kid gloves. 
10* o 



226 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Men of genius have seldom revealed to us how much of their 
fame was due to hard digging. There were many headaches 
before the polished verses that fall so harmoniously on your ear 
were tortured into shape ; many a trial before Michael Angelo 
hewed out in marble or personated in fresco the awful con- 
ceptions of Dante. " Not even the Sybarite was at ease on his 
rosebed. Even he had some labor to perform ; no hand save 
his own could uncrumple the rose-leaf that chafed him." 

Ninety per cent of what men call genius is a talent for hard 
work ; only the remaining tenth is the fancied ability of doing 
things without work. The mere drudgery which some men 
are said to have gone through with in executing their plans al- 
most staggers belief. To acquire a polished style, Lord Chester- 
field for many years wrote down every brilliant passage he met 
with in his reading, and either translated it into French, or, if 
it was in a foreign language, into English. A certain eloquence 
became at last, he says, habitual to him, and it would have 
given him more trouble to express himself inelegantly than 
ever he had taken to avoid the defect. To gain a mastery of 
language, Lord Chatham not only used to translate Demosthenes 
into English, but also read Bailey's folio dictionary twice through 
with discriminating attention. Eor the same purpose, his son, 
William Pitt, before he was twenty years old, had read the works 
of nearly all the ancient classic authors, many of them aloud, 
dwelling sometimes for hours on striking passages of an orator 
or historian, noticing their turns of expression, and trying to 
discover the secret of their charm or power. The " silver- 
tongued " Mansfield not only translated all of Cicero's orations 
into English, but also retranslated the English orations into 
Latin. 

Butler, who exhibits in his Hudibras an amount of wit, 
comic illustration, and curious and out-of-the-way learning that 
is absolutely portentous, kept a commonplace-book, in which, 
according to Dr. Johnson, he had deposited for many years, not 
such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such 
remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 227 

occasion prompted or inclination produced, — those thoughts 
which were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully 
applied to some future purpose. " Such," adds Johnson, " is 
the labor of those who write for immortality." Before the 
great essayist himself began the Eambler, he had collected 
in a commonplace-book a great variety of hints for essays on 
different subjects. Addison amassed three folios of manuscript 
materials before he began the Spectator. The papers in that 
periodical, like most essays which have survived the changes of 
time and the caprice of fashion, were simply the form which 
their author chose to impart to the world thoughts which, for 
the most part, had long been shaping and clothing themselves 
with words in his own mind. 

Jean Paul Bichter did the same thing. For years he went 
on reading, studying, and observing, making great books of ex- 
tracts for future use, which he called his quarries. These note- 
books contained a kind of repertory of all the sciences ; and he 
also carefully noted down his daily observations of living nature. 
The great Catholic writer, De Maistre, for more than thirty 
years noted down whatever he met with of striking interest in 
his reading, accompanying his extracts with comments ; and he 
also placed in the same " immense volumes " those " thoughts 
of the moment, those sudden illuminations, which are extin- 
guished without result, if the flash is not made permanent by 
writing." Hume toiled thirteen hours a day while preparing his 
History of England. Lord Bacon, notwithstanding the fertility 
of his mind, economized his thoughts, as the many manuscripts 
he left, entitled " Sudden Thoughts set down for Use," abun- 
dantly testify. Erskine made numerous extracts from Burke, of 
whom he was an intense admirer ; and Lord Eldon copied Coke 
upon Littleton twice, re-reading that crabbed work till his whole 
mind was saturated with its lore and spirit. Southey was un- 
wearied in his efforts to prepare himself to write. I^ot content 
with a mere reference in a table-book, whenever he met with 
anything available in his reading he marked the passage with 
his pencil, and it was transcribed, docketed,, and deposited in 



228 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

an array of pigeon-holes. Nothing short of this exhausting 
industry could have produced the Commonplace Book or The 
Doctor. 

When we look at the prodigious acquisitions of some men 
and the colossal performances of others, we are apt to think 
that such persons enjoy an immunity from the general law, — 
that the former class know intuitively without the trouble of 
learning, and that the latter execute great works without any 
real toil. We are apt to fancy that men of transcendent abil- 
ities are endowed with some special faculty, — with one sense 
more than belongs to common men. In contemplating the 
wondrous creations of Shakespeare or the masterpieces of 
Milton and Dante, in thinking of Newton discovering the 
mechanism of the heavens, of Watt constructing the steam- 
engine, or of Morse inventing the electric telegraph, we are 
so utterly baffled in attempting to trace the process by which 
they reach these results, that we are tempted to ascribe them 
to a species of second-sight, rather than to the normal workings 
of the human mind. Even such histories as those of Gibbon, 
Gurzot, and Buckle imply a capacity of acquiring knowledge 
and a tenacity of memory so immeasurably beyond those of 
common men, that we are apt to think these faculties in them 
to be different in kind as well as in degree. But a peep into 
the biographies of these and other great men dissipates these 
illusions. We find that, almost without exception, the men 
of brilliant genius, whether poets, orators, statesmen, histo- 
rians, generals, or teachers, have been the hardest kind of 
workers, toiling more -laboriously than smiths or carpenters ; 
and that the reason why they have surpassed other men is 
simply that they have taken more pains than other men. 
" Few of the great works of genius have been thrown off amid 
luxuries and abundant leisure. Generally they have been 
elaborated in the intervals of less congenial toils, amidst 
neglect, anxiety, and privation. The men who have spread 
light through the world, it has been truly said, had often 
scarcely oil for the lamp by which thej worked; they that 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 229 

have left imperishable records of their minds had often little 
to support the body, and gave forth the incense in which their 
knowledge is embalmed " in self-consuming flames." But poor 
or independent in circumstances, the great men of the world 
have worked. Heyne, the great German classicist, shelled the 
peas for his dinner with one hand, while he annotated Tibullus 
with the other. Matthew Hale, while a student of law, studied 
sixteen hours a day. Sir Thomas More, and Bishops Jewell 
and Burnett, began studying every morning at four o'clock. 
Paley rose at five ; Gibbon was hard at work, the year round, 
at six. Burke was the most laborious and indefatigable of 
human beings ; Pascal killed himself by study, or rather by 
study without exercise ; Cicero narrowly escaped death from 
the same cause ; Hooker, Barrow, and Jeremy Taylor were 
industrious scholars ; Milton kept to his books as regularly as 
a merchant or an attorney. " My morning haunts," proudly 
says the latter, in one of the few passages in winch he gives 
us a peep into his private life, " are where they should be, at 
home ; not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular 
feast, but up and stirring ; in winter, often ere the sound of 
any bell awakens men to labor or devotion ; in summer, as oft 
with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read 
good authors, or cause them to be read, till attention be weary 
or memory have its full freight ; then with useful and generous 
labors preserving the body's health and hardiness." 

The old idea of a genius, once so popular with lazy men, as 
one who never studies, or who studies nobody can tell when, — 
at midnight, or at odd times and intervals, when the fit chances 
to be upon him, — and who scorns to be shackled by methods 
or rules, is now pretty nearly exploded. It is acknowledged 
by all sensible men, that, as Dr. Dewey says, "genius will study; 
it is that in the mind that does study ; that is the very nature 
of it." There is but one method of attaining to excellence, 
says Sydney Smith, " and that is hard labor ; and a man who 
will not pay that price for distinction had better at once 
dedicate himself to the pursuit of the fox, or sport with the 



230 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

tangles of Nesera's hair, or talk of bullocks and glory in the 
goad ! There are many modes of being frivolous, and not a 
few of being useful ; there is but one mode of being intellect- 
ually great." 

We hear a great deal about the extempore productions of 
men of genius, — great works dashed off at a heat ; but could 
we learn the secrets of the literary workshop, we should find that 
most of these marvellous improvisations, like the cut-and-dry, 
elaborate impromptus of conversation, which have been kept 
in pickle for weeks, have been the result of years of anxious 
thought and care. Sheridan is said to have written "Pizarro" at 
Drury Lane Theatre, over port wine and sandwiches ; but every 
one familiar with his life knows that he was a literary trickster, 
who polished and repolished the brilliant off-hand sayings 
with which he used to dazzle the House of Commons with the 
greatest care, — that they were, in fact, the results of previous 
reflection, kept ready for use in a memorandum-book. The 
brunt of the labor upon " Pizarro " had probably been done 
before he set pen to paper. 

No man appears to write with more ease than Dickens ; yet 
a published letter of his shows that when he was brooding 
over a new book his whole soul was "possessed," haunted, 
spirit-driven by one idea ; and he used to go wandering 
about at night into the strangest places, seeking rest, and find- 
ing none till he was delivered. When that little Christmas 
book, The Chimes, was about to rise from the ocean depths 
of his thought, he shut himself up for a month close and 
tight, till all liis affections and passions got twined and knotted 
up in it, and, long ere he reached the end, he became " haggard 
as a murderer." It is said that on being requested to read at 
his public recitations a new selection from his writings, he 
replied that he had not the time to prepare himself, as he was 
in the habit of reading a piece once a day for six months 
before reciting it in public. That the author of David Cop- 
perfield had little faith in improvisations is evident from the 
following golden words : " The one serviceable, safe, certain, 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 231 

remunerative, attainable quality in every study and every pur- 
suit is the quality of attention. My own invention or imagi- 
nation, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would 
never have served me as it has but for the habit of common- 
place, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention." This 
is the way the most fertile, imaginative, vivacious writer of 
modern fiction does his work. 

Eousseau, who wrote with so seeming ease, as he cast 

" O'er erring thoughts and sentences a hue 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling while they past 
The eyes that o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast," 

tells us that it was only " by ceaseless inquietude," by endless 
blotches and erasures, that he attained the magic beauty of his 
style. Moliere, whose verse has all the easy flow of conversa- 
tion, would pass whole days in fixing upon the freest and most 
vernacular mode of turning his couplets. Petrarch, in writing 
his impassioned amatory sonnets to Laura, — 

" Watering the tree which bears his lady's name 
With his melodious tears, — " 

seems to have suffered more keenly from the pangs of rhyming 
than from the loss of his mistress, if we may judge by the ope- 
rose corrections in his manuscripts. No one would dream that 
Beranger's light, chirping verse, which seems as spontaneous 
as the twittering of a sparrow, is the result of intense labor ; 
yet the author bestowed weeks and months even upon a single 
song, in order to give it that appearance of ease and simplicity 
at which he constantly aimed. Cardinal Bembo had a desk 
with thirty divisions, or pigeon-holes ; and whenever he com- 
pleted a sonnet, he put it into the first of them, whence he 
took it, after a certain interval, and, having read and corrected 
it, put it into the next department. In a little time he would 
take it out, give it some more touches here and there, and 
promote it to another pigeon-hole. In this way he used to 
make his sonnet run the gauntlet through all the crypts, till 
he took it from the last of them, a pure and perfect chrysolite, 
— as complete a piece of literature as his persevering taste 



232 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

could make it. Buffon, who used to say of style that it was, 
in fact, the man, was slow with the pen, and asserted that 
genius was nothing but patience. Eochefoucault so castigated 
his Maxims by revision, that he left them the hard literary 
muscle which we find them. 

Addison wore out the patience of his printer. He would 
often stop the press to insert a new preposition. Gibbon wrote 
out his autobiography, a model of its kind, nine times before 
he could satisfy himself. Hazlitt tells us that he was assured 
by one who knew, that Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord, the 
most rapid, impetuous, glancing, and sportive of all his works, 
was returned to the printing-office so completely blotted over 
with alterations that the compositors refused to correct it as 
it was, took the whole matter to pieces, and reset the copy. 
Hazlitt himself spent so many weary years before he could 
wreak his thoughts upon expression, that he almost despaired 
of ever succeeding as an author. John Foster was a most pain- 
fully laborious writer. He tells us that in revising one of his 
essays, his principle was to treat no page, sentence, or word 
with the smallest ceremony, but " to hack, split, twist, prune, 
pull up by the roots, or practise any other severity on whatever 
he did not like." The consequence was " alterations to the 
amount, very likely, of several thousands." When Chalmers, 
after a visit to London, was asked what Foster was about, 
he replied, " Hard at it, at the rate of a line a week." 

Even the light, facile verse of Tom Moore was the efflores- 
cence of deep strata of erudition ; a quaint piece of learning 
often blossomed into a song, and knowledge gathered out of 
scores of folios bloomed into whole wildernesses of beauty. 
Washington Irving tells us that Moore used to compose his 
poetry while walking up and down a gravel walk in his garden, 
and when he had a line, a couplet, or a stanza polished to his 
mind, he would go to a little summer-house near by, and write 
it down. Ten lines a day he thought good work, and would 
keep the little poem by him for weeks, waiting for a single 
word. Some of his broadest squibs cost him whole weeks of 
inquiry. 




Sir WALTER SCOTT. 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 233 

The ductility of language in the hands of Hawthorne sur- 
prises and delights every cultivated reader. But for his lately 
published Note-Books, which betray the secret of his art, — 
reveal the laws by which his genius wrought, — we might 
fancy him an exception to the rule that intense labor is the 
price of all high excellence. We find him in these not trust- 
ing to inspirations, but day by day, through every month and 
every year, patiently jotting down every random thought that 
chanced to stray into his mind, pinioning every hint in ink, 
securing every fact or fancy that may possibly serve as material 
for or adornment of some future work. Xot one of his books 
was flung off from the top of his mind at a white heat. We 
find, on the contrary, that it was by condensing into a chapter, 
and sometimes into a sentence, the fruits of months of waiting 
and watching, hints by the wayside and stray suggestions 
followed up and wrought out, moonlight meditations, and 
flashes of illumination from electric converse with congenial 
minds, that he wove his spells, so weird, so dark, and so 
potent. 

It is said that a rival playwright once jeered at Euripides, 
because he had taken three days to compose five lines, whilst 
lie had dashed off five hundred in the same time. " Yes," was 
the just retort, " but your five hundred lines in three days will 
be dead and forgotten, whilst my five will live forever." The 
number of hours spent in the manual labor of writing a book 
is no measure of the brain-labor expended in composing it. 
Thoughts, to flow easily, must overflow from a full mind. 
Alonzo Cano, the Spanish sculptor, completed a beautiful 
statue in twenty-five days. When the sordid merchant who 
had employed him wished to pay him by the day, he cried out, 
indignantly, " Wretch ! I have been at work twenty-five years, 
learning to make this statue in twenty-five days." So, as an 
English reviewer thoughtfully suggests, great painters may 
finish off great pictures with wonderful speed, as if hurried 
along by a whirlwind of inspiration ; so also great writers, like 
Sir Walter Scott (though even in his case with very doubtful 



234 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

advantage), may be able to dictate works of enduring interest 
and give them to the world without revising or retouching 
them at all ; but the reason in all these cases is the same. 
Long years of study and practice and meditation have so 
arranged and fitted, and, as it were, lubricated, the delicate 
mental instruments which the matter in hand requires, that 
when the motive power is applied, when the steam is up, 
they work with the precision and regularity of a machine. 

As in literature, so in art, — the works that have challenged 
the world's admiration for ages have been the result of unwearied 
toil. Michael Angelo, who, if any man, had a right to rely 
on genius only, said of himself that all was due to study. He 
went sometimes a week without taking off his clothes. " During 
the nine years that I was his wife," said the widow of the great 
painter, Opie, "I never saw him satisfied with one of his pro- 
ductions; and often, very often have I seen him enter my 
sitting-room, and, throwing himself in an agony of despondence 
on the sofa, exclaim, ' I never, never shall be a painter as long 
as I live ! ' " It was this noble despair, which is never felt by 
vulgar artists, this pursuit of an ideal which, like the horizon, 
ever flew before him, that spurred on Opie to higher and yet 
higher efforts, till he filled one of the highest niches in the 
artistic temple of his country. When a lady once asked Turner 
what his secret was, he replied, " I have no secret, madam, but 
hard work. This is a secret that many never learn, and they 
don't succeed because they don't learn it. Labor is the genius 
that changes the world from ugliness to beauty, and the great 
ourse to a great blessing." 

Of oratory it has been said that there never was a good 
speaker who did not acquire his proficiency at the expense of 
his hearers. If ever any man was born an orator, it was 
Charles James Fox, who, as Wilberforce said, could begin at 
full speed, and roll on for hours without fatiguing himself or 
his audience ; yet even his talents were gradually developed 
by practice, for he made a point of speaking as often as he 
could, — once every night, if an opportunity offered, — ex- 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 235 

pressly with a view to his own improvement. Sir Eobert Peel 
began when a boy to cultivate those abilities which, though 
only mediocre, made him one of the weightiest speakers in the 
House of Commons. When he was quite a child, his father 
used frequently to set him upon the table, and say, "iSTow, 
Eobin, make a speech, and I will give you this cherry." "What 
few words the little fellow produced were applauded, and 
applause, stimulating exertion, produced such effects that be- 
fore he was ten years old he could really address the company 
with some degree of eloquence. As he grew up, his father 
constantly took him every Sunday into his private room, and 
made him repeat as much as he could of the sermon he had 
heard. Little progress was made at first ; but by steady per- 
severance the habit of attention grew powerful, and the sermon 
was repeated at last almost verbatim. When many years after- 
wards he replied in succession to the arguments of his parlia- 
mentary opponents, stating each with extraordinary fulness 
and accuracy, it was little suspected that the power to do so had 
been acquired, under Ins father's training, in Drayton church. 

America has probably produced no greater orator than Henry 
Clay. Though endowed with great natural gifts, he was no 
exception to the rule that orator fit. He attributed his success 
to the one single fact that at the age of twenty-seven he began, 
and continued for years, the practice of daily reading and 
speaking upon the contents of some historical and scientific 
book. " These off-hand efforts," he says, " were made some- 
times in a cornfield, at others in the forest, and not un- 
frequently in some distant barn, with the horse and ox for my 
auditors. It is to this early practice in the great art of all 
arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses 
that stimulated me forward, and shaped and moulded my sub- 
sequent entire destiny. Improve, then, young gentlemen, the 
superior advantages you here enjoy. Let not a day pass with- 
out exercising your powers of speech. There is no power like 
that of oratory. Csesar controlled men by exciting their fears ; 
Cicero, by captivating their affections and swaying their pas- 



236 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

sions. The influence of the one perished with its author ; that 
of the other continues to this day." Henry Ward Beecher, 
when a theological student, was drilled incessantly by a skilful 
elocutionist in posturing, gesture, and voice-culture. There 
was a large grove between the seminary and his father's house, 
and it was the habit, he tells us, of his brother Charles and 
himself, and one or two others, to make the night, and even 
the day, hideous with their voices, as they passed backward 
and forward through the wood, exploding all the vowels from 
the bottom to the very top of their voices. It is said that the 
greatest sermon ever preached by Dr. Lyman Beecher, the 
father of Henry, — one of the most powerful pulpit orators in 
America, — was one on "The Government of God." When 
asked, as he descended the pulpit steps, how long it took him 
to prepare that sermon, he replied, " About forty years, sir." 

It cannot be too often repeated that all extraordinary skill is 
the result of vast preparatory training. Facility of every kind 
comes by labor. Nothing is easy, not even walking or reading, 
that was not difficult at first. Emerson tersely says : " All the 
great speakers were bad speakers at first. Stumping it through 
England for seven years made Cobden a consummate debater. 
Stumping it through New England for twice seven years 
trained Wendell Phillips. The way to learn German is to read 
the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you 
know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and 
repeat them by heart. No genius can recite a ballad at first 
reading so well as mediocrity can at the fifteenth or twentieth 
reading. The rule for hospitality and Irish ' help ' is, to have 
the same dinner every day throughout the year. At last Mrs. 
O'Shaughnessy learns to cook it to a nicety, the host learns 
to carve it, and the guests are well served. A humorous friend 
of mine thinks that the reason why Nature is so perfect in her 
art, and gets up such inconceivably fine sunsets, is that she 
has learned how, at last, by dint of doing the same thing so 
very often. Cannot one converse better on a topic in which 
he has experience than on one which is new 1 Men whose 



THE WILL AND THE WAY. 237 

opinion is valued on 'Change are only such as have a special ex- 
perience, and off that ground their opinion is not valuable." 

But little reflection is needed to satisfy us that it is for wise 
purposes that Providence has established the inexorable decree 
that intense toil shall be the price of all rare excellence or suc- 
cess. Men are so constituted as to think lightly of, and even 
despise, that which it has cost them but a slight effort to win. 
When the maiden is too forward, her lover deems it time to 
draw back. Besides, there would be no exclusiveness in excel- 
lence, nothing to distinguish it, or make it peculiarly desir- 
able, if it could be too cheaply purchased. It is told of two 
highwaymen, that, chancing once to pass a gibbet, one of them, 
with an ill-boding sign, exclaimed, " What a fine profession 
ours would be if there were no gibbets ! " " Tut ! you block- 
head," replied the other, " gibbets are the making of us ; for, 
if there were no gibbets, every one ivould be a highwayman." 
Just so with every art, trade, or pursuit ; it is the difficulties 
that scare and keep out unworthy competitors. What Jean 
Paul Eichter said of poverty, writing to a friend at the very 
time when he was in the clutches of a remorseless creditor, is 
true of many a trial in life. "What is poverty," said he, 
" that a man should whine under it ] It is but the pain of 
piercing the ears of the maiden, and you hang precious jewels 
in the wound." Even the dreariest tasks, like the ugly toad 
with the jewel in its head, have some redeeming circumstances 
that cheat them of their repulsiveness. " The ugliest trades," 
says Douglas Jerrold, " have their moments of pleasure. Now 
if I were a grave-digger, or a hangman, there are some people 
I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment." 

In conclusion, we would say to every man who wishes to 
get on in the world, in the words of the poet Holmes, — 

Be firm ; one constant element of luck 

Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck. 

Stick to your aim : the mongrel's hold will slip, 

But only crowbars loose the bull-dog's grip ; 

Small though he looks, the jaw that never yields 

Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields ! 



238 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

RESERVED POWER. 

A man so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and 
does with ease and pleasure all the work that as a mechanism it is capable of, — 
whose intellect is a clear, cold logic-engine, with all its parts of equal strength 
and in smooth working order, ready like a steam-engine to be turned to any 
kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the 
mind. — Huxley. 

Every person represents something, stands for something. At least, he 
represents a value antecedently created in his own character. As was said of 
Bias, the wise Greek, himself is the treasure that a whole life has gathered. 
He stands for the wealth of being that a thousand struggles have contributed 
to form. — Rev. F. D. Huntington, D. D. 

It is told of Hercules, god of real force, that " whether he stood, or walked, 
or sat, or whatever thing he did, he conquered." — Ib. 

IjST the great international boat-race which occurred some years 
ago on the Thames between the clubs of Harvard and Ox- 
ford, the boat manned by the former took the lead almost from 
the start. Bowing forty-six strokes to the minute, while their 
adversaries rowed but forty-two, the Harvard men were soon 
half a length, next a whole length ahead, and, to a superficial 
observer, seemed likely to win the race. But presently the 
pace sinks to forty and thirty-nine ; foot by foot, and inch by 
inch, the men of the dark-blue colors, with the slow, steady, 
ponderous swing of their oars, creep up on their adversaries ; 
the men of the crimson colors strain every sinew to its tension, 
fighting every inch of the way ; but lo ! suddenly their stroke, 
hitherto so impetuous, begins to slacken and look distressed ; 
their opponents are steadily pulling forty strokes a minute to 
their thirty-nine or less ; a few minutes more, and Oxford 
moves victoriously ahead, and, in spite of the last desperate 
" spurts " of Harvard, maintains her superiority to the goal, and 
the race is won. 



RESERVED POWER. 239 

A great many explanations have been given of Harvard's 
defeat, but is it not evident that the main cause was a lack of 
that vital element in all contests and struggles, that element 
which Americans are so apt to despise or neglect, namely, 
reserved power 1 Is it not true that, not only in boat-races, but 
everywhere, — in all the intellectual and moral contests of life, 
— in the commercial mart, in the senate, in the pulpit, and in 
the forum, — men fail of success from early exhaustion, from 
a lack of that accumulated force, whether physical, mental, or 
spiritual, which only can qualify them to meet any unexpected 
draught upon their powers 1 In the composition of an army, 
one of the first essentials of effective action is a well-constituted, 
powerful reserved force. It consists of picked men, trained 
veterans, with a cool, sagacious commander, who can be thrown 
at any moment into the very thick of the light, to sustain a 
faltering legion, or to turn a doubtful combat into a decisive 
victory. The lack of such a force, or its lack of numbers and 
discipline, has often made the difference between a battle won 
and a battle lost. Who that is familiar with the campaigns of 
Xapoleon does not remember how often the trembling scale was 
turned, and the exultant legions of the enemy were rolled back, 
just as victory was about " to sit eagle-winged on their crests," 
by the resistless charge of the Imperial Guard ? And at Water- 
loo, when his star went down in darkness, to what mainly was 
the disaster owing, but to the fact that tins reserved force had 
been diminished and enfeebled by the necessity of repelling 
the attack on his right flank, so that when he partially broke 
the British line at La Have Sainte, he could not follow up Ins 
success with a deadly blow 1 

Life is a warfare : it, too, has its decisive moments, when 
success or failure, victory or defeat, must hinge upon our re- 
served power. At the bar, in the senate, in the pulpit, in the 
fields of business, in every sphere of human activity, he only 
organizes victory and commands success behind whose van and 
corps of battle is heard the steady tramp of the army of the 
reserve. It is not enough that the rank and file of our forces 



240 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

will suffice for ordinary occasions ; that, if the campaign takes 
just the direction which we had expected, and there are no un- 
foreseen obstacles to surmount, no attacks by the enemy in 
overwhelming numbers, no strategy for which we had not 
provided, we shall then be victorious. We must be prepared for 
unexpected crises, — for incredible emergencies, remembering 
that, as the French proverb has it, nothing is sure to happen 
but the unforeseen. Above all, we must not cheat ourselves 
with the delusion that, if we have failed to organize a suf- 
ficient force at the outset, we can impress men on the line of 
march, or forage for supplies as we go along. Much less can 
we extemporize in the battle-field evolutions which we have 
never practised on the parade-ground. 

Do we appreciate this truth 1 Is it one which " Young 
America " emphasizes and acts upon 1 Do we, as professional 
men, in planning life's campaign, see to it that our spiritual 
forces are made up of picked men, sound in wind and limb, all 
the maimed, halt, and blind being rigorously excluded from our 
muster-rolls ; and, above all, do we keep our recruiting-offices 
constantly open, remembering that the war ends only with life 1 
Do our young men, in preparing for this war, spend years in pa- 
tient and severe training, drilling and exercising their intellect- 
ual forces by all the approved and some non-approved methods 
of discipline ; testing them by mock fights, concentrating them 
now upon this point and now upon that, now bidding them 
storm some fortress of error, and anon to sap and mine, till 
every raw recruit is a prompt and obedient soldier, so loyal, so 
trained to action, that he will rally and form into line at the 
first tap of the drum ? Or, on the contrary, is it not a melan- 
choly fact that nine tenths of our professional men despise, or 
at least underrate the necessity of, thorough training ; and with 
raw levies, troops hastily conscripted, not for a life campaign, 
but for each particular battle, rush forward confidently to meet 
the enemy, only to encounter a Bull Run rout and overthrow ? 
In other words, do we as professional men lay in abundant 
stores of knowledge before we begin our professional life, add- 



RESERVED POWER. 241 

ing daily to their sum, or do we intellectually live from hand 
to mouth 1 Do we not, at least too many of us, cram for each 
occasion, like a turkey stuffed for Thanksgiving and starved all 
the rest of the year % Do we not invest all our physical, men- 
tal, and moral capital in our business, instead of keeping a part 
in bank 1 ? While economizing our gold and greenbacks, 
while " alting down " our hard cash for a rainy day, — accu- 
mulating for future use lands, houses, mortgages, and stocks, — 
do we cultivate intellectual thrift 1 

Not that the material stores are unnecessary ; by no means. 
No army can do without a base of supplies. Our late civil 
war has taught us that other things are necessary to victory be- 
sides men, discipline, and valor. We have learned that the long 
purse tells more powerfully upon the issue of a contest than long- 
ranged cannon ; that often, as Louis XIV. said of his struggle 
with the allies, it is the last crown that wins ; that a base of 
supplies is just as essential to military success as well-armed 
battalions ; that often it is not so much the regiments thrown 
forward into the field as the reserved forces intrenched in pro- 
ductive industry at home, and supporting the advancing col- 
umn by their contributions and moral influence, that decide a 
campaign. Wellington won Waterloo, indeed, by his veterans ; 
but, back of this, it was the steam-engine, giving to England a 
working-power equal to fifty millions of men, — of men who 
fed upon coal and water, instead of on meat and bread, — that 
overturned the First Empire, and set down Napoleon in mid- 
ocean to meditate upon the might and majesty of that reserved 
force which he had not calculated upon in his scheme of per- 
sonal aggrandizement. Granting all this, however, it is never- 
theless true that our chief lack is that of spiritual force and 
discipline ; and that as here lies our weakness, this fact should 
furnish a hint as to where we should direct our efforts. 

Let us now proceed to consider some of the reasons why we 
should collect and train this reserved force. 

We answer, first, because it is the easiest and most economi- 
cal way of carrying on, not only a military campaign, but the 



242 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

campaign of life. To serve a long and weary apprenticeship 
to any calling, to spend years in gymnazing and training the 
faculties till one has become an athlete, costs, we know, 
patience and self-denial ; but we appeal to every wrestler in 
the world's arena if it is not the cheapest in the end % Does 
not all experience show that in the long run it is easier to be 
than to seem, — to acquire power than to hide the lack of it 1 
"Was there ever a lazy boy at school, or student in college, who 
did not take infinitely more pains to dodge recitations and to 
mask his ignorance than would have been necessary to master 
his lessons, however dry or crabbed ? Is there a mechanic who 
scrimps his work, that does not cheat himself in the end 1 ? 
Depend upon it, reader, nothing is more exhausting than the 
shifts to cover up ignorance, the endless contrivances to 
make nothing pass for something, tinsel for gold, shallowness 
for depth, emptiness for fulness, cunning for wisdom, sham 
for reality. Add to this the perpetual fear of detection, — the 
constant trembling lest some blunder should expose one's 
emptiness, lest some shaft should penetrate a weak joint in the 
harness, lest a protruding ear should reveal the ass in the lion's 
skin, — and it will be seen that no other possible procedure is 
half so labor-saving as thorough knowledge, exact training, pro- 
found and varied culture, the careful composition and constant 
renewal of our spiritual reserves. The true way to treat a dif- 
ficulty is to face it boldly, and cut through or remove it. Go 
round it, and, unlike Mr. Micawber's " something," it will be 
forever " turning up again," growing more and more formidable 
every time you dodge it. 

It is true that this is not the popidar doctrine. We live in 
an age of " fast " men, — of steam and electricity, — and now 
that people travel by " lightning lines," going from New York 
to Chicago in twenty-nine hours, the cry on all sides is for 
"short cuts" to the professions, and science-made-easy methods 
of intellectual culture. Instead of toiling painfully on foot up 
the rugged steeps of learning, the student of to-day flies with 
lightning-like speed along a railway track, finding every cliff 



RESERVED POWER. 243 

cut through, every valley bridged. Even the Mt. "Washingtons 
have railways leading to their tops, and every Hoosac is tun- 
nelled. Perhaps the new methods of intellectual culture are 
best, but there are some " old fogies " left who will doubt it. 
They will doubt the value of royal roads. They will question 
the expediency of making education very easy, if it is to pre- 
pare one for a world where labor is the eternal condition on 
which the rich man gains an appetite for his dinner, and the 
poor man a dinner for his appetite. They will inquire 
whether to simplify every study, to lead the mind along a 
planked road or railway to knowledge, so that no efforts on its 
own part, no long, distressing discipline of thought and re- 
search, no grappling with difficulties, is required, be not to 
defeat the chief end of study. If you wish to toughen the 
body, do you make the exercises of the gymnasium — the 
climbing of ladders, the jerking of dumb-bells, the swinging on 
parallel bars — light and unfatiguing 1 Is it not in the very- 
hardness of the thing done that its value consists 1 The sav- 
age believes that every time he slays an enemy the spirit of 
that enemy enters into him, and becomes added to his own, 
accumulating a warrior's strength for the day of battle. So, 
when you conquer a difficulty, the spirit of that difficulty 
passes into you, transformed into power ; it adds to the mind's 
reserved force, just as the resisting of one temptation tends to 
disarm the next of its power. Every intricate problem solved 
by the pupil unaided is a true victory over himself, and 
inspires confidence for new conquests. On the other hand, 
the student of cyclopaedias and notes and handbooks and keys 
never knows anything positively, and, thrown upon his own 
resources, is utterly helpless. He can never go without his 
crutches. 

The lack of reserved power will explain many failures which 
otherwise would seem unaccountable. Why is an author's 
second book so often unreadable 1 Is it not because, instead of 
drawing from a living spring, he exhausts himself, pumps himself 
dry, in his first effort 1 Eor years he has dreamed over one pro- 



244 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

jected composition to which all his experience has stood related, 
all his thought has converged. It is the net result of his ex- 
perience up to a certain time ; it is the cistern into which he 
has poured his accumulated life. Elated by success, he mis- 
takes the cistern for a fountain, taps his brain again, and the 
result is, we get but the dregs and lees of his thought. The first 
book he wrote because he had something to say, the second 
because he wanted to say something ; and the one is but the 
echo of the other. 

Secondly, reserved power gives yet greater force and effect to 
power in action. Indeed, power exerted, however great, never 
impresses us in the profoundest degree, unless we feel that behind 
it there is a power greater than itself, by which it can be at 
any moment augmented. The force that is exhausted in a 
single jet inspires but a limited degree of admiration or awe. 
For its highest effect we must feel that it is a Niagara fed by 
vast inland seas, the vanguard of a coming host, the shower 
that foreruns a coming tempest, 

The baby finger 
Of the giant mass of things to come 
At large. 

Nobody is thrilled to his being's core by an exhibition of power 
that is evidently draining itself to the very dregs. The race- 
horse that, panting and gasping, just reaches the goal ; the 
locomotive that tugs at its load ; the bank that is drained by 
a day's run ; the philosopher with one idea ; the hen cackling 
over its one egg ; the student who just escapes " plucking " ; the 
" Single-speech Hamilton," who never opens his mouth a 
second time in Parliament ; the Sir Egerton Brydges, who 
writes but one fine sonnet, though it rivals Milton's ; the 
governor elected by one vote, — provokes our sympathy, rather 
than our respect. Our last term of contempt is " played out." 
Who are the men that impress us most in history 1 Are they 
not those that are felt to be greater than their deeds, — who by 
their acts only beget an expectation that outruns all their per- 
formance ] The large part of their power is latent, a reserved 



RESERVED POWER. 245 

force which acts directly by presence, and without means. 
Their victories are won by demonstration of superiority, not 
by crossing of bayonets. It has been often remarked that a 
speech never seems truly great unless there is a man behind it 
who is greater than the speech. A brilliant but shallow, heart- 
less orator never yet stole the secret of a sincere conviction. 
As it was not the Prussian needle-gun, destructive as it is, 
which won the late Prussian victories, but the intelligence and 
discipline of the Prussian soldier, — the man behind the gun, 
educated in the best common schools in the world, — so it is 
the latent heat of character, the man behind the words, that 
gives them momentum and projectile force. It was this which 
gave so prodigious a power to the words of Chatham, and made 
them smite his adversaries like an electric battery. Men who 
listened to his oratory felt that he " put forth not half his 
strength," — that the man was far greater than any tiling he 
said. It was the magnetism of his person, the haughty 
assumption of superiority, the scowl of his imperial brow, the 
o min ous growl of his voice, " like thunder heard remote," and, 
above all, the evidence which these furnished of an imperious 
and overwhelming will, that abashed the proudest peers in 
the House of Lords, and made his words perform the office of 
stabs and blows. 

The impression which every speaker, whether on the plat- 
form or in conversation, makes on his fellows, is the moral 
resultant, not of what he says, but of all that he has grown up 
to be ; of his manhood, weak or strong, sterling or counter- 
feit ; of a funded but unreckoned influence, accumulated un- 
consciously, and spending itself, as the man is deep or shallow, 
like a reservoir, or like a spout or an April shower. 

In reading the great masters of English thought, we are 
constantly impressed by this reserved force. We feel, as we 
slake our thirst at these " wells of English undefiled," that we 
can never drain them dry ; that they are not cisterns, but 
living fountains, whose depths are fathomless. Eead a page 
of Macaulay, and you exhaust the thought at a single perusaL 



246 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

Eead a page of Bacon twenty times, and at each reading yon 
will discover new meanings, unobserved before. That haze 
which the naked eye could not penetrate is found by the tele- 
scope to be a nebula, composed of innumerable distinct stars. 
The one writer informs, the other stimulates, the mind. The 
one enlightens, the other inspires. The first communicates 
facts and opinions ; the second floods and surcharges you with 
mental life. So in Barrow, — of whom Charles I. said that 
he was an unfair preacher, because he left nothing for others to 
say, — it is not the Amazonian fulness of the thought that 
impresses you so much as the air of conscious facility with 
which he discusses every theme. Be the subject mathematical, 
metaphysical, or moral, he brings always to it a mind superior 
to the occasion, and holds it with a giant grasp. He handles 
the most ponderous problems of theology with an heroic ease, 
like that of Homer's champions, hurling stones which nine 
degenerate men of modern times would have failed to lift. 

And so with him whom we call " oceanic," " the myriad- 
minded," ." the thousand-souled," — the great master of the 
human heart, who swept all its strings, or, rather, whose soul 
was a mighty organ through which Nature gave utterance to 
the full diapason of her notes, — the dramatist whose exhaust- 
less fertility of thought is such that in the whole range of his 
characters he never once repeats himself, the " suggestive sor- 
cery" of whose language affects us like the spell of a mighty 
enchanter, — what is the distinguishing characteristic of his 
genius but that reserved power which makes his greatest efforts 
seem " like the play, the sport of his mighty spirit, waves 
borne to our feet from a deep sea which oar has never vexed 
nor plummet sounded " ? 

The biographer of the German metaphysician, Fichte, con- 
trasting his wealth of thought with the formalism of a contem- 
porary, observes that " all the truth that the latter has written 
is not worth a tithe of the false which Fichte may have written. 
The one gives me a small number of known truths ; the other 
gives me perhaps one truth, but, in so doing, opens before me 



RESERVED POWER. 247 

the prospect of an infinity of unknown truths." Who does 
not recognize here the portraits of two classes of thinkers that 
are to be found in every department of philosophy, science, 
and literature, — the one consisting of poverty-stricken thinkers, 
who instruct but do not rouse, who enlighten but do not elec- 
trify; the other, of those mighty and sustained spirits that 
open up new paths with every step they take ; that wrestle 
with their subjects only to grind them to powder ; that struggle 
with language in order to wrest from it words enough for their 
wealth of thought ; that do not so much lead as seize and 
hurry us along ; who seem to say all that they do say only that 
we may conjecture how much more they could say ; and who 
move about in the intellectual world with an ease and con- 
fidence which proclaim that they not only dwell but rule 
there % 

It has been truly said that the great orator is not he who 
exhausts his subject and himself at every effort, but he whose 
expressions suggest a region of thought, a dim vista of imagery, 
an oceanic depth of feeling, beyond what is compassed by his 
sentences. He affects you hardly less by what he leaves out 
than by what he puts in. The thoughts he so eloquently utters 
only apprise you of the nearness of a world whose thoughts 
are more eloquently wmittered. 

Nature has her reserved forces, the knowledge of which im- 
presses us more than her grandest displays of material power. 
Her mightiest operations are performed in silence, and the 
effect is deepened and intensified by the sense of a greater 
power behind that which we see or feel. Art, too, touches us 
by its reserved power. There are paintings whose meaning lies 
on the surface and is exhausted by a single look ; and there 
are others which disappoint at first, yet, reverently studied, 
gradually glow with beauty, disclosing new marvels of skill, 
hidden depths of meaning, at each examination, till at last the 
genius of the artist stands confessed, and you gaze transfixed 
as by a mighty enchanter. 

Perhaps the highest proof of this reserved power in the 



248 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

artist is the ease with which, however hard he may have 
labored, he will seem to perform his marvels. When Michael 
Angelo proposed to fortify his native city, Florence, and was 
desired to keep to his painting and sculpture, he observed that 
these were his recreations, — what he really understood was 
architecture. This is what Sir Joshua Eeynolds considered as 
the praise of Eubens, that he seemed to make a plaything of 
the art. " A picture must not only be done well," he said, " it 
must seem to have been done easily." Northcote, the painter, 
speaking of the labored and timid productions of the modern 
French and Italian schools, remarks that " they are the result 
of such a tedious, petty, mechanical process, that it is as diffi- 
cult for you to admire as it was for the artist to execute them ; 
whereas, when a work seems stamped on the canvas by a blow, 
you are taken by surprise, and your admiration is as instanta- 
neous and electrical as the impulse of genius which has caused 
it. I have seen pictures with such a power that it thrilled 
through your whole frame, and you felt as if you could take up 
your brush and do anything." 

Another advantage of reserved power is that, when it cannot 
prevent defeat, it will at least save us from rout and despair. 
The military leader who brings all his troops to the front has 
no resource when beaten ; every defeat is a Waterloo. Not so 
with the man who has always battalions in reserve ; he fights 
more and more valiantly after each overthrow. Like Blucher 
at Ligny, he may be forced back from his position ; but he 
will retreat in good order, and in two days more the thunder 
of his guns will be heard at Waterloo, sending death and dis- 
may into the ranks of his late victors. Like Washington, he 
may lose more battles than he wins ; but he will organize vic- 
tory out of defeat, and triumph in the end. Napoleon said of 
Massena that he was not himself until the battle began to go 
against him ; then — when the dead began to fall in windrows 
around him — awoke his marvellous powers of combination, 
and he put on terror and victory as a robe. 

We all remember the conduct of Phil. Sheridan on a certain 



RESERVED POWER. 249 

occasion when tie found his army retreating before the victo- 
rious Early. " sir," said the general in command, " we are 
beaten !" " Xo, sir," was the reply ; " you are beaten, but this 
army is not beaten " ; and then, seizing his army as Jupiter his 
thunderbolt, he hurled it upon the enemy. We all remember, 
too, the case of Curran. He had a defect in his speech, from 
which he was nicknamed " stuttering Jack Curran " ; and 
when he essayed his first speech, the features of his audience 
awam before his eyes, the candles seemed to glare unmercifully 
upon him, his words stuck in his throat, and he sank into his 
seat filled with mortification and shame. But he knew his 
reserved strength, and when on a second trial he was ridiculed 
as Orator Mum, the very sarcasm stung him into eloquence ; 
he replied with a triumphant speech, and was able at last to 
charm the fastidious ear of the House of Commons, and to 
make a corrupt bench tremble. 

Disraeli's first effort was a failure. It would have killed an 
ordinary man. All the wiseacres shook their double chins at 
him; but he simply replied, "The day will come when you 
will be glad to hear me," a prophecy which his sneering critics 
have seen abundantly fulfilled. Robert Hall failed even more 
ignominiously. In his first sermon he " stuck " almost at the 
beginning. Covering his face with his hands, lie sobbed aloud, 
"0, I have lost all my ideas ! " and burst into a flood of 
tears. A second trial ended in a more agonizing failure ; but 
the man who at the age of eight had made Butler's Analogy 
and Edwards on the Will his intellectual recreations was not 
to be silenced by two failures. A third trial was made, and 
from that hour he took rank as the most brilliant pulpit orator 
of England. When Thoreau published that unrivalled New 
England pastoral, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack 
Bivers," only three hundred copies were sold or given away, and 
the other seven hundred were returned to him by the publisher. 
How does he notice the fact in his diary'? "I have now," he 
writes in grim triumph, " a library of some nine hundred vol- 
umes, seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Xevertheless, in 
11* 



250 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

spite of this result, sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I 
take up my pen to record what thought or experience I may 
have had with as much satisfaction as ever." 

A striking illustration of the advantage which a reserved 
power gives to the man of letters, especially when contending 
on the battle-fields of thought, is furnished by the famous 
Phalaris controversy which raged in England about two centu- 
ries ago. The dispute had its origin in France, where Fonte- 
nelle and Perrault claimed for the moderns a general superior- 
ity over the writings of antiquity. A reply to these arguments 
was published by Sir William Temple, who, in his Essay on 
Ancient and Modern Learning, declaring for the ancients, main- 
tained with more elegance of manner than weight of matter 
that the oldest books extant were still the best of their kind, 
and, in proof of this assertion, cited the Fables of ^Esop, and 
the Epistles of Phalaris. This led to the publication of a new 
edition of the Epistles by the scholars of Christ Church, Oxford, 
the nominal editor being Hon. Charles Boyle. Meanwhile 
William Wotton, a Cambridge scholar of marvellous precocity, 
who had taken his degree at the age of thirteen, had published a 
very able and impartial estimate of the controversy in his Ee- 
flections upon Ancient and Modern Learning ; and at his ear- 
nest request, Eichard Bentley, the Master of Trinity College, 
and the greatest Hellenist of his age, had added to the second 
edition of that work a dissertation in the form of letters to his 
friend, in which he proved that the author of the Epistles of 
Phalaris was not the tyrant of Sicily, but some sophist of a 
later day. 

Sir William Temple was greatly incensed at this publication, 
in which his own quackery and sciolism, as well as that of the 
Oxford wits, had been so mercilessly exposed ; and, at his re- 
quest, Dean Swift entered the lists, and made an onslaught upon 
Bentley in "The Battle of the Books"; but the rage of the knight 
was mild to that of the Christ Church men, who considered 
Bentley's attack an affront to the whole college, and resolved 
by joining their forces to crush the audacious assailant at once 



RESERVED POWER. 251 

and forever. In a brilliant and skilfully written work, to 
which half a dozen of their "best scholars contributed, and into 
which they poured all the stores of wit, sarcasm, acumen, and 
erudition which they could muster, they attacked Bentley in 
turn, and, in the estimation of the public, gained a complete 
victory. A shout of triumph went up from their ranks, which 
was echoed by all the spectators of the combat ; a second edi- 
tion of the book, which was deemed absolutely unanswerable, 
was called for ; and Eentley was supposed, even by his own 
friends, to be silenced forever. Xobody dreamed that he 
would ever dare to reply, still less that he could ever again 
hold up his head in the republic of learning ; the cup of his 
adversaries' joy was full, and their exultation knew no bounds. 
At Cambridge a caricature was exhibited of Phalaris putting the 
unfortunate critic into his brazen bull ; and as it was thought 
that a member of St. John's College, where Bentley was edu- 
cated, could not properly make his exit without a pun, he was 
represented as saying, " I had rather be roasted than Boyled." 

Xow was to be seen the signal advantage of reserved power. 
In the midst of all this outcry the literary lion remained un- 
moved. " Hushed in grim repose," he lay couchant, and, 
with his eyes upon the gambols of his victims, was settling him- 
self at leisure for his fatal spring. Conscious of his own learn- 
ing, compared with whose boundless stores the entire joint- 
stock of the confederacy was but that of school-boys, — all that 
he had previously disclosed in the controversy being but the 
sprinklings of his treasures, — Bentley resolved to prepare an 
answer which should not only annihilate his opponents at one 
fell swoop, but establish his reputation as one of the profound- 
est scholars the world had seen. At length, when Achilles 
was armed for the field, the signal was given • and with the 
fullest benefit of final revision, which left no room for friend 
or foe to point out a flaw, '"that immortal dissertation," as 
Porson calls it, which was to make an epoch, not only in the 
life of the great Grecian, but in the history of literature, de- 
scended like a thunderbolt upon the enemy, — 



252 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

" And in one night 
The trumpet silenced, and the plumes laid low." 

Never was there a more crushing defeat. Every position of 
the enemy was carried ; they were routed, horse, foot, and dra- 
goons. After this Waterloo, they never took the field again ; 
it was felt to be madness. The victory over his adversaries, 
immortal as it was, forms but a small part of Bentley's achieve- 
ment. So profound is his learning, and such is his skill, 
that, while every page is controversial, he has embodied a 
mass of accurate information relative to history, chronology, 
antiquities, philology, and criticism, which has never, perhaps, 
been matched in any other volume ; while all is so luminously 
arranged and presented that the elementary student of classical 
literature may read with profit and pleasure, and the most 
veteran scholar find the circle of his knowledge enlarged. 

A yet more memorable illustration of the value of reserved 
power is furnished by the debate in the United States Senate 
in 1830, concerning the sale of the public lands. " The occa- 
sion," says a thoughtful writer, " was not a great one j the de- 
bate upon it for some days dragged heavily. The vast reserve 
power of one man made it the event of our history for a gener- 
ation. The second speech of Mr. Hayne, to which Mr. Web- 
ster was called upon to reply, was able and brilliant, its consti- 
tutional argument specious, its attack upon New England and 
upon Mr. Webster sharp even to bitterness. But Mr. Hayne 
did not understand this matter of reserved power. He had 
seen Mr. Webster's van and corps of battle, but had not heard 
the firm and measured tread behind. It was a decisive mo- 
ment in Mr. Webster's career. He had no time to impress 
new forces, scarcely time to burnish his armor. All eyes 
were turned to him. Some of his best friends were depressed 
and anxious. He was calm as a summer's morning ; calm, Ms 
friends thought, even to indifference. But Ms calmness was 
the repose of conscious power, the hush of nature before the 
storm. He had measured his strength. He was in possession 
of himself. He knew the composition of Ms ' army of the re- 



RESERVED POWER. 253 

serve.' He had the eye of a great commander, and he took in 
the whole field at a glance. He had the prophetic eye of logic, 
and he saw the end from the beginning. The exordium itself 
was the prophecy, the assurance of victory. Men saw the sun 
of Austerlitz, and felt that the Imperial Guard was moving on to 
the conflict. He came out of the conflict with the immortal 
name of the Defender of the Constitution. Of this speech, and 
of the mode of its delivery, one of the greatest of our orators has 
said, ' It has been my fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches 
of the greatest living orators on both sides of the water ; 
but I must confess I never heard of anything which so com- 
pletely realized my conception of what Demosthenes was when 
he delivered the Oration for the Crown.' I venture to add 
that, taking into view the circumstances under which the 
speech was delivered, and especially the brief time for prepara- 
tion, the importance of the subject, the breadth of its views, 
the strength and clearness of its reasoning, the force and beauty 
of its style, its keen wit, its repressed but subduing passion, 
its lofty strains of eloquence, the audience to which it was 
addressed (a more than Eoman audience), its effect upon that 
audience and the larger audience of a grateful and admiring 
country, history has no nobler example of reserved power 
brought at once and effectively into action. The wretched 
sophistries of nullification and secession were swept before his 
burning eloquence as the dry grass is swept by the fire of the 
prairies."* 

Here, did space permit, we might speak of the self-confi- 
dence, the dignity of mannner, which reserved power gives 
to him who knows that he is equal, and more than equal, to 
the occasion. In describing his feelings while making the 
speech we have just noticed, Mr. Webster is reported to have 
said to a friend : "I felt as if everything I had ever seen or 
read or heard was floating before me in one grand panorama, 
and I had little else to do than to reach up and cull a thunder 
bolt and hurl it at him ! " 

♦ Hon- B. F. Thomas, LL.D. 



254 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

But the reader may ask, How is this reserved force to be got '? 
How is it to be gathered and trained % 

We answer, first, by hard study. Capital, in whatever 
shape it may be accumulated, pecuniary or intellectual, is 
hoarded labor. - If we wish our drafts to be honored in a crisis, 
there must be daily deposits in the savings-bank. Tell me 
how much has been your patient toil in obscurity, and I will 
tell you how far you will triumph in an emergency. It has 
been well said that the mental balance never lets us overdraw. 
In life's school-room " each day recites a lesson for which all 
preceding days were a preparation. Our real rank is deter- 
mined, not by lucky answers or some brilliant impromptu, but- 
by the uniform diligence. For the exhibition-days of Provi- 
dence there is no preconcerted colloquy, — no hasty retrieving 
of a wasted term by a stealthy study on the eve of the exami- 
nation. Bonnivard, Huss, Wyckliffe, Alfred, Washington, 
Madame Poland, Catherine of Genoa, — these valiant souls 
were not inoculated for their apostleship extempore. The roots 
of all their towering greatness, so brave to the top, ran back 
under the soil of years." 

The best extempore efforts, the most brilliant impromptus, 
come from those who have acquired the ability to make them 
by years of toil. Chief Justice Parsons, when an attorney, 
once astonished Alexander Hamilton, his opponent, by the 
promptness with which he demolished one of his strongest 
points. But when beginning practice he had access to the 
best law-library in New England, and had literally mas- 
tered it, making briefs of the most important cases, among 
which were several involving the very point in question. The 
truth is, the ready man — the man full of resources, armed 
cap-hpie for every emergency — is the man who has toiled 
long and hard to he ready, and to acquire that strength and 
flexibility which will prepare him for whatever he may have 
to do. 

It is true there are men at the bar, in the pulpit, and in the 
senate, whose instantaneous and imperial command of ideas 



RESERVED POWER. 255 

and words seems like an instinct. They have all their faculties 
and knowledges so completely at call, — they are able to bring 
all their powers to bear at once with such energy and earnest- 
ness on any given point, and to keep them so fastened on that 
point, that we ascribe the result, not to training, but to that 
mysterious something which we call genius. And geniuses, no 
doubt, there are in the world ; but, depend upon it, there are 
no geniuses in this nineteenth century that reap without sow- 
ing ; none that are idlers till the moment a demand is made 
upon their mind, and then answer it by intuition. All such 
have disappeared from the world with ghosts. The geniuses of 
our day are distinguished by their power of intense application, 
— application not always spread over a great lapse of time, 
but which hits the nail on the head, which has a fine aim for 
the heart of a subject or the hinge of a difficulty. If in pro- 
fessional life they astonish us by their readiness and fertility, it 
is because we forget that their minds have been previously so 
exercised on similar subjects, that not only the necessary words, 
but the necessary arguments and combinations of thought, 
have become by long practice as intuitive as those motions of 
the body by which we walk, talk, or do any habitual act. 

If one man scowls and agonizes over a difficulty in theology, 
law, or medicine, straining his brain almost to lesion, and 
another sees at a glance where lies the difficulty and what is 
the solution, does this prove inevitably that the latter has more 
natural ability than the other 1 ? By no means. It simply 
shows that his faculties have been edged and sharpened by 
years of familiarity with such topics ; and the ease with which 
he now does his work, so far from proving that he has always 
worked with ease, is, on the contrary, but the measure of the 
labor by which he has prepared himself to do it. The thorough 
mastery of even one subject can be the fruit only of hard 
thinking. It demands the element of time. It can be won 
by no power of cramming. " How easily he writes ! " ex- 
claimed a young lady as she laid down one of Irving's charm- 
ing volumes. Had she said, "How easy it is to read his 



256 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

books J " they who know something of the agonies of " easy 
writing " might readily sympathize with her. The locomotive 
slips easily along the railway track ; but ten thousand men 
toiled in quarries of iron and coal, in the bowels of mountains, 
in forests, and in machine and cabinet shops, before you could 
fly on the wings of steam at the rate of forty miles an hour. 
The steamboat, to use an illustration we have somewhere seen, 
glides gracefully and swiftly over the waters ; but it is no easy 
power that gives to the water-traveller her steady and rapid 
motion. It is true she is tastefully decorated and gilded ; her 
cabins are luxurious, and her prow is decorated with specimens 
of the sculptor's art. But descend with us to the engineer's 
fiery domain, and swelter there in the burning pit; see the 
sweating firemen, and listen to the bursting steam ; behold the 
tremendous power of fire and water combined, until the strained 
and groaning boiler threatens to burst asunder and deluge her 
decks with the imprisoned fluid, — and you will confess that 
Ease, though a mild and pleasant damsel, has a terribly rough 
old father. It is slow and hard thinking that makes rapid and 
easy reading. The freedom and facility of the writer and 
speaker spring from the same source as the painter's, which, 
Sir Joshua Eeynolds tells us, " are attained only by intense 
study and industry at first, though the pictures thus wrought 
with such pains now appear like the effect of enchantment, 
and as if some mighty genius had struck them off at a blow." 
And here let us add that this labor must not be confined to 
the period of youth, but continued through life. The nucleus 
of the reserve force must be gathered and trained in the begin- 
ning of the war, but it must be enlarged and strengthened by 
fresh recruits through the entire campaign. Professional cul- 
ture must begin at the Law, Medical, or Divinity School, but 
it must not end there. A public speaker is inexhaustible only 
in proportion as he nourishes his mind by study ; and in mind, 
as in body, when nourishment ceases vitality ends. The 
preacher who shuts his books when he puts on his white choker, 
thft lawyer who tosses aside his Coke upon Littleton the 



RESERVED POWER. 257 

moment lie is in the full tide of practice, does so at his peril. 
We know the excuses that may be given for this. We know 
the ten thousand distractions to which each is exposed, — the 
moths that eat into his time, — especially when the one is pas- 
tor of a city congregation, and the other is beset by a swarm of 
clients. But we know that the world cares nothing about these 
excuses, and that the lawyer whose plea is shallow, the preacher 
who, instead of pruning off all divergent activities, fritters his 
time into shreds by making and receiving calls, going on picnics, 
talking up reading-rooms and art-institutes, acting as secretary 
of a dozen societies, serving on committees, delivering temperance 
lectures, listening to the twaddle of bores and the complaints 
of grumblers, and neglects severe and continuous study, will 
speak, the one to yawning juries and the other to empty pews. 
Do you say that the writing of two sermons a week consumes 
so much time that the young preacher has none left for general 
culture 1 We answer that it is the very absence of this culture 
that makes sermon- writing so laborious and so consumptive of 
time. Ex nihilo nihil Jit, — it is hard, and always will be hard, 
to draw water from an empty cistern, even by means of a force- 
pump. The fatal flaw in nine tenths of the sermons one hears is 
that they lack body of thought, vitalized knowledge, intellectual 
power. The preacher who would permanently and powerfully 
impress his hearers should have large reserves of knowledge ; 
he must be like Bishop Brownrig, of whom Fuller tells us that 
he not only " carried learning enough in numerate about him 
in his pockets for any discourse," but "had much more at 
home in his chests for any serious dispute." It has been well 
observed by the editor of one of our ablest religious journals,* 
that " the merchant is in a dangerous position whose means are 
in goods trusted out all over the country on long credits, and 
who in an emergency has no moneys in bank upon which to 
draw. A heavy deposit, subject to a sight-draft, is the only 
position of strength. And he only is intellectually strong, who 
has made heavy deposits in the bank of memory, and 

* Rev. W. W. Patton, D.D., in the Advance. 



258 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

can draw upon his faculties at any time, according to the 
necessity of the case." Give two of the three days which you 
now spend in grinding out sermons to hard study, reading the 
ablest books, even some that are called heretical, mastering the 
greatest themes, and iiliing the cells of the brain with the fruits 
of the most varied culture, and you need not trouble yourself 
about the sermon ; it will write itself, as the water from the 
lake gushes up in the fountain. The combustibles will be 
gathered ; you will have only to apply the match. 

Again, we must reserve time for meditation. We live in an 
age of bustle and excitement ; the click of the telegraph, the 
whistle of the locomotive, the whir of machinery, is ever in our 
ears. The tendency of the times is to force every man of ability 
into great outward activity, and thereby in many cases to dam 
up and divert to the turning of this mill or that the stream 
which, if left unbroken, would have gathered volume enough 
to fertilize a vast tract of thought. Besides this, in our large 
towns every cultivated man is beset with a multiplicity of social 
enjoyments and excitements, the very waste-pipes of spiritual 
power ; and the energies of the brain, instead of forming a fund 
that is continually deepening by influx from secret sources, are 
diffused and wasted on trivialities. Add to this the fact that 
the Americans are the most impatient people under the sun, — 
that we are not content to wait through long and weary years 
for the fruits of our toil, but, in the stockjobber's phrase, are 
anxious " to realize " at once, — and can we wonder that so few 
of us accumulate the reserve power which is indispensable 
if we would do anything worthy of our faculties 1 Is it strange 
that our intellectual work is so poor, when our lives are so full 
of disquiet, and we have hardly a grain of that patience of na- 
ture which slowly and with the forethought of a century of 
growth builds up and elaborates a forest tree 1 Need we to be 
told that while knowledge is acquired by labor, "wisdom 
cometh by opportunity of leisure," and that the ripest thought 
comes from a mind which is not always on the stretch, but fed 
at times " by a wise passiveness " 1 



RESERVED POWER. 259 

The literary worker, above all men, should remember that 
leisure, and oftentimes protracted leisure, is an absolute neces- 
sity of his intellectual life. The electric eel cannot be always 
giving off shocks. No field, however rich its soil, will bear con- 
tinual cropping. It has been justly said that Aaron's beard 
would not have come down to us in history, if he had but 
shown the Israelites what he could shave from his chin day by 
day ; and even an Emerson would be unrecognizably diluted, 
if he were trickled through a daily editorial. There is no mental 
reservoir of such capacity that it will not be empty at last, if 
we perpetually draw from it and never pour into it. Besides,we 
must remember that, as the Country Parson has told us, the 
mind can be emptied in much shorter time than it is possible 
to fill it. " It fills through an infinity of little tubes, many so 
small as to act by capillary attraction ; but in writing a book, 
an article, or a sermon, it empties itself through a twelve-inch 
pipe." When old Dr. Bellamy was asked by a young clergy- 
man for advice about the composition of his sermons, he re- 
plied : " Fill up the cask ! fill up the cask ! fill up the cask ! 
and then if you tap it anywhere you will get a good stream. 
But if you put in but little, it will dribble, dribble, dribble, 
and you must tap, tap, tap, and then you get but a small 
stream, after all." 

Thirdly, to acquire reserved power, we must concentrate our 
energies upon some one thing, yet be careful at the same time 
to avoid mental narrowness. 

The mind, as well as the body, demands variety of discipline 
as well as generosity of diet. It will not grow to its full stature, 
nor be rounded into just proportions, nor acquire that blended 
litheness, toughness, and elasticity which it needs, if fed upon 
one aliment. There is no profession or calling which, if exclu- 
sively followed, will not warp and contract the mind. Just as 
in the body, if I resolve to be a rower and only a rower, the 
chances are that I shall have, indeed, strong arms, but weak 
legs, and perhaps lose my eyesight by the glare of the water ; 
or as, if I become a pugilist, I shall be all muscle, with no 



260 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

brains, — so, in the mind, if I exercise but one set of faculties, 
and neglect the rest, I may become a subtle theologian, able to 
discriminate between the Homoousion and the Homoiousian, or 
between " efficacious " and " sufficient " grace, with more than 
Aquinas's subtlety ; or a sharp, hair-splitting lawyer, with the 
eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound to detect a legal flaw ; 
or a profound classical scholar who, like Hudibras, 

" Can speak Greek 
As easily as pigs squeak," 

and to whom Latin 

" Is no more difficile 
Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle," — 

but, as a man, I may be below contempt. The clergyman, es- 
pecially, is apt, without broad and generous culture, to get a 
mental twist, a narrowness and one-sidedness, which greatly 
lessens his power. Beading and thinking of nothing but the- 
ology, he gets into a rut, — a rut which deepens every year, but 
never widens. Travel with him in his narrow groove a twelve- 
month, and you cease ever afterwards to see or hear anything 
new. He may not literally turn the barrel over, but he 
preaches substantially the same sermons. The texts may be 
new, but you recognize the same old thunder. There is a con- 
tinual iteration of old thoughts, the thrashing of the same 
straw without wheat, the same barrel-organ tunes, the turn- 
ing of the wheel upon its own axis, the jogging on the same 
old roads with the " one-hoss shay." 

For these reasons we would say to every man, Strive for ex- 
cellence in your calling, but, as subsidiary to this, do not fail 
to enrich your whole capital as man. To be a giant, and not 
a dwarf, in your profession, you must be always growing. A 
town that is finished has already begun to decay. The man 
that has ceased to go up intellectually has begun to go down. 
The more various your mental diet, the more inexhaustible will 
be your mental resources; the wider your range of thought, 
the greater will be your chance of original combinations. 
Eead the best non-professional works in science, history, and 



RESERVED POWER. 261 

literature, and select for friends and associates some whose pur- 
suits are unlike your own, and you will be astonished, when 
you write or speak, at the freshness of your thoughts and the 
multitude and variety of illustrations that will come trooping 
to the tip of your tongue or pen. Nothing conduces more to 
breadth of intellect than intercourse with various minds. 
" The commerce of intellect," it has been well said, " loves dis- 
tant shores. The small retail trader deals only with his neigh- 
bor ; when the great merchant trades, he links the four quar- 
ters of the globe." 

Upon the importance of concentration we need not dwell. 
While avoiding narrowness, we must remember that it will be 
impossible to accumulate much reserved power if we dissipate 
our strength upon many objects, instead of using it with 
economy and directing it to one grand end. But how shall 
we use it economically, when so many things are clamoring for 
our attention 1 We answer, by concentrating our efforts upon 
the vitally essential part of our work, and neglecting the less 
important ;. in other words, by striking where the blows will 
be most effective. We must do as William Pitt did, when 
overwhelmed by official duties. He divided his work into 
three parts, — that which was not worth doing, that which 
would do itself, and that which was quite enough for any man 
to attempt. 

A vivid illustration of the advantage with which this may 
be done is furnished by an incident related some years ago in 
an Eastern magazine. " We once happened," says the writer, 
" into a country church on a Sunday forenoon in a strange 
place, and were seated in a pew in the broad aisle. The clergy- 
man, a weakly seeming man, with a whisper of a voice, rose to 
his duties, and feebly went through the various services antece- 
dent to the sermon. We wished ourselves out of it, but retreat 
was impossible : we looked about ; the church was full. 
What could people come to meeting for? to see and hear 
such a dead-and-alive performance as that 1 We settled our- 
selves down in desperate resignation, hoping that at least the 



262 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

sermon would be short. The sermon "began, and the very first 
sentence of it was like the blast of a bugle. The pallid parson 
seemed all of a sudden to have had a quart of blood poured 
into his veins, a gallon of lungs put into his thorax, and the 
strength of a drover stowed away in his body and arms. For 
a half-hour he held us almost spell-bound with the most ani- 
mated delivery, powerful argumentation, and vivid original 
illustration, rendered with vigor of voice, and with every 
appearance of abundant physical power. So we learned the 
secret of the great congregation, and the toleration of his open- 
ing dulness or stupidity. So we learned, too, how a man really 
feeble, by husbanding his force against ineffective expenditures, 
and exerting it all when the greatest number of minds could 
be influenced at once, and by reason of the surroundings most 
powerfully influenced, could do a great work weekly, and sus- 
tain himself in the high estimation and valuation of society. 
Now, if this minister had attempted to conduct the whole ser- 
vice with as much vigor as he preached, his strength would 
have given out just as the sermon was commencing, and the 
effect of his whole week's labor and study would have been 
measurably lost." * 

Eobert Hall was wont to husband his physical strength in the 
same way. Though athletic in frame, he often announced his text, 
and for some minutes spoke, in a tone so low as to be barely 
audible. During even the first twenty minutes there was 
nothing in his discourse indicating to his hearers that a giant 
stood before them ; but as his voice swelled from an almost 
unintelligible whisper to a trumpet peal, they were spell-bound 
by the enchantment of his oratory ; and when he was conclud- 
ing, the effect upon the nervous system of the listener was like 
* the shock of artillery. 

Lastly, we must avoid overwork. As we shall consider this 
subject in a subsequent chapter, we shall barely glance at it here. 
It is well known that the body or brain that is overtasked 
will soon lose its power, if it be not even smitten with paral- 

* Walter Wells, in Lippincott's Magazine. 



RESERVED POWER. 263 

ysis or death. Yet, aside from the victims of necessity, who 
must work at all hours, as and when they can, there is hardly 
any calling in which men are not overtasking themselves, 
toiling too long and too hard, to win a success which, when 
it comes, they will be too enfeebled to enjoy. The blow which 
struck down the Vice-President of the United States in his 
chair, and sent him staggering from the Senate Chamber, is 
one which at this moment is threatening hundreds of our lead- 
ing men in all the professions, — the blow that is sure, sooner 
or later, to avenge overwork. His case is but one more added 
to the martyrology of the nineteenth century, the martyr- 
ology, not of the stake or the scaffold, but of toil. The one 
thing which the great man of to-day cannot do, is — to rest. 
As did Peel, Canning, Cobden, Sir George C. Lewis, Sir 
William Hamilton, Macaulay, Choate, Stanton, Governor 
Andrew, and Raymond, so Gladstone, Bright, Bismarck, Sumner, 
and Colfax are now doing, — killing themselves by inches, 
exhausting their vitality by excessive brain-work. 

Now, can anything be more unwise than this 1 When shall 
we learn that play is as necessary as labor, that frequent 
respites from toil are the very safety-valves of professional 
men ? Even if we can endure the strain, it is not prudent to 
work constantly up to the very highest rate of which we iare 
capable. If an engineer on a railway were to keep the speed 
of his train constantly up go the maximum of which the loco- 
motive is capable, his engine would soon be used up. Drive 
a horse day after day at the top of his speed, and you soon 
wind him. All machinists construct their machines so that 
there shall be a reserve force. If the power required is four- 
horse, they make a six-horse power, so that the machine may 
not only work easily, but last long. Our bodies and brains 
are engines, only more complex and delicate in structure, 
which should be used with even greater care and economy. 
The man who has strength to do ten hours' work a day, phys- 
ical or intellectual, should do but seven or eight ; and then he 
may hope to accumulate a reserve fund of energy which will 



264 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

not only round out his frame to fair proportions, and enable 
him to toil with ease, cheerfulness, and alacrity, but furnish a 
capital, a fund in bank, upon which he can draw heavily in 
any emergency, when called on to do two days' work in one. 
Without this capital, he will not only do his work painfully, 
forever tugging at the oar, but he will be incapable of increas- 
ing the strain upon his powers, however urgent the necessity ; 
he cannot put a pound more of pressure upon the engine with- 
out an explosion. 

We emphasize this point, because there is no class of persons 
that need more to husband their strength than professional men. 
There are some of so dull and phlegmatic a temperament — 
" slow coaches," that jog on at so lazy a pace — that they 
need no note of alarm. They need the whip, not the rein ; 
and the utmost speed you can get out of them will only call their 
muscles into healthful activity. But there is another class, — 
the fiery, earnest, zealous men, the nervous men, tremulous 
as the aspen, enthusiasts in their callings, — who need to 
economize their nerve-force, unless they would prematurely 
exhaust themselves and sink into an early grave. Such men 
need to be reminded that they have but a limited fund of 
strength, upon which they are making draughts with every 
breath they draw and every word they utter, and that therefore 
they cannot guard too jealously against any waste of their 
nerve-power. Any needless expenditure of strength, however 
slight, whether by physical or mental effort, in conversation or 
study, in excitement, in worry or fidgeting of any kind, is just 
so much detracted from that which they need for their life- 
work. Throw your energy upon the effective point, whatever 
that may be ; but don't waste your lightning upon things of 
no account. 

Are you a preacher % Don't spend your strength on little 
week-day meetings and social and side matters, so that when 
Sunday comes, and every word you speak should tell upon a 
thousand, you will be as lifeless as a mouse in an exhausted 
receiver. It is better, one has well said, to lose a pint of 



EESEKVED POWER. 265 

blood from your veins than to have a nerve tapped. Do not 
make the mistake of one of New England's most brilliant law- 
yers, — we refer to Mr. Choate, — concerning whom a brother 
advocate laments that he not only worked too much, but had 
no just economy of labor. You remember his answer when 
blamed for thus endangering his constitution : " Good 
heavens, my dear fellow ! my constitution was all gone years 
ago, and I 'm living on the by-laws." JN r o wonder his constitu- 
tional strength was exhausted, considering with what an utter 
lack of economy he labored. " He did a thousand things," 
says Judge Thomas in the admirable address from which we 
have already quoted, " which men of narrower capacity might 
have done as well, or well enough. He expended upon his 
work a vast amount of superfluous strength. He brought the 
whole army of the reserve into action, when the victory might 
have been easily and gracefully won by the van and corps of 
battle." Avoid, we pray you, this mistake. Do not as- 
sail pygmies with eighty-four-pounders. Do not imitate Dr. 
Johnson, of whom Peter Pindar tells us that he 

" Uplifts the club of Hercules, — for what ? 
To crush a butterfly, or to brain a gnat ; 
Creates a whirlwind, from the earth to draw 
A goose's feather or exalt a straw ; 
Bids ocean labor with tremendous roar 
To heave a cockle-shell upon the shore." 

Here we may remark that the great secret of husbanding 
one's strength, so as to accumulate a fund, is to work intensely, 
not many hours. On this point we have the authority of one 
who was himself a prodigious worker, and accomplished 
the highest results, yet never worked with jaded or flagging 
powers, never strained the bow till it was bent, never 
weakened his brain by overtasking it. We refer to Daniel 
"Webster. Some years ago Mr. Whipple, of Ehode Island, had 
occasion to consult him touching an important law-case, — a 
case in which were presented many cross-questions of law and 
equity, and so involved that it required days and weeks of 
hard labor to discover a channel-way over its shoals and amid 
12 



266 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

its rocks. Meeting Mr. Whipple early in the morning, Mr. Web- 
ster by dinner-time had threaded all the avenues and cross- 
paths of the labyrinth, and gave an opinion so clear and com- 
prehensive that Mr. Whipple was constrained to ask him what 
had been his system of mental culture. In reply Mr. Webster 
observed, that it is a law of our natures that the body or the 
mind that labors constantly must necessarily labor moderately. 
He instanced the race-horse, which, by occasional efforts in 
which all its power is exerted, followed by periods of entire 
rest, would in time add very largely to its speed ; and the 
great walkers or runners of our race, who, from small begin- 
nings, when fifteen miles a day fatigued them, would in the 
end walk off fifty miles at the rate of five or six miles an hour. 
He also mentioned the London porter, who, at first staggering 
under the load of one hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds, 
would in time walk off with six or eight hundred pounds with 
apparent ease. The same law governs the mind. When em- 
ployed at all, its powers should be exerted to the utmost. Its 
fatigue should be followed by its entire rest. Mr. Webster added 
that, whatever mental occupation employed him, he put forth 
all his power, and when his mental vision began to be obscure, 
he ceased entirely, and resorted to some amusement or light 
business as a relaxation. 

The last hint we would g ; .ve to him who would increase his 
reserved power is, get plenty of sleep. The harder we 
work during the day, the more sleep do we require to repair 
the waste of nervous energy. Americans not only work too 
hard, but sleep too little. The rapid development of the 
country, its intense industrial activities, the fiery ambition of 
the people, our dry, electric atmosphere, and our sunny climate, 
all tend to make us preternaturally wakeful. American stu- 
dents, we fear, sit up too late and get up too early. A great 
many are killed by alarm-clocks. The best wakeners are sun- 
light and the twittering of birds. The anecdotes told of 
Brougham, Napoleon, and others, who are said to have slept 
but four or five hours out of the twenty four, but who, we sus- 



RESERVED POWER. 267 

pect, took a good many cat-naps in the daytime, have, done 
much harm. The time taken out of eight hours' daily sleep is 
not time gained, but time worse than wasted. We may cheat 
ourselves, but we cannot cheat Xature. Because she lets us over- 
draw our accounts for many years, we fancy the accounts are 
not kept. But, depend upon it, she is a jealous creditor, who 
is sure in the end to exact with compound interest every loan 
she makes to us ; and if we continue borrowing for work the 
nours that are due to sleep, though we may postpone a settle- 
ment for years, the final and inevitable result will be physical 
and mental bankruptcy. 



268 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

ECONOMY OF TIME. 

Dost thou love life ? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life 
is made of. — Franklin. 

Think naught a trifle, though it small appear ; 
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, 
And trifles, life. — Young. 
Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after-life 
with a usury of profit "beyond your most sanguine dreams, and that the waste 
of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and in moral stature, be- 
yond your darkest reckonings. — W. E. Gladstone. 

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, 
each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gontf 
forever. — Horace Mann. 

ONE of the most important lessons to be learned by ever^ 
man who would get on in his calling is the art of economiz' 
ing his time. A celebrated Italian was wont to call his time 
his estate ; and it is true of this as of other estates of which 
the young come into possession, that it is rarely prized till it is 
nearly squandered ; and then, when life is fast waning, they 
begin to think of spending the hours wisely, and even of has* 
banding the moments. Unfortunately, habits of indolence, 
listlessness, and procrastination, once firmly fixed, cannot be 
suddenly thrown off, and the man who has wasted the precious 
hours of life's seed-time finds that he cannot reap a harvest 
in life's autumn. It is a truism which cannot be too often 
repeated, that lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost 
knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, 
but lost time is gone forever. 

In the long catalogue of stereotyped excuses for the neglect 
of duty, there is none which drops oftener from men's lips, or 
which is founded on more of self-delusion, than the want of 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 269 

leisure. Persons are always cheating themselves with the idea 
that they would like to do this or that desirable thing, " if 
they only had time." Hundreds of young men burn with an 
intense desire to cultivate their minds ; they realize how essen- 
tial, in this age of intelligence, are mental training and knowl- 
edge to success j they see the superficial, half-instructed men 
everywhere distanced in the race of life ; but, alas ! every mo- 
ment of their waking hours is taken up by the pressing calls 
of business, and they have no leisure for reading or study. 
Hundreds there are who feel the profoundest sympathy for the 
poor, and who would out-Howard Howard in " carrying broth 
and blankets to beggars," and in distributing the bread of life 
in the form of Eibles and tracts ; but their own affairs usurp 
all their time and attention, and they can do nothing for their 
fellow-men. 

Such are the pleas by which the lazy and the selfish excuse 
themselves from a thousand things which conscience dictates 
to be done. JSTow, the truth is, there is no condition in which 
the chance of doing any good is less than in that of leisure. 
Life, it has been truly said, is composed of an elastic material, 
and wherever a solid piece of business is removed, there the 
surrounding atmosphere of trifles rushes in as certainly as the 
air into a bottle when you pour out its contents. If you 
would exhaust the air from a given spot, you must enclose it in 
a vessel of texture as firm and as carefully secured as would 
be required to protect the most precious and delicate substance ; 
and so an hour's leisure, if one would not have it frittered 
away on " trifles light as air," needs to be guarded by barriers 
of resolution and precaution as strong as are needed for hours of 
study and business. Go hunt out the men in any community 
who have done the most for their own and the general good, 
and you will find they are — who 1 "Wealthy, leisurely 
people, with extensive stomachs and highly polished shoes, who 
have oceans of time to themselves, and nothing to do but to 
eat, sleep, and vegetate 1 No ; they are almost uniformly the 
overworked class, — the toil-and-moil, almost-driven-to-death 



270 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

men, who seem wellnigh swamped with cares, and are in a 
ceaseless paroxysm of activity from January to December. It 
is these men who find time to preside at philanthropic meetings, 
to serve on Tract or Missionary Society committees, to visit the 
poor, to attend noon prayer-meetings, and to attend to self- 
culture by reading not only the best old books, but the pick of 
the ever-multiplying new publications of the day; while a 
busy male trifler, who spends his time in laboriously doing 
nothing, or a lady who lies upon her sofa, and has no creature 
dependent upon her, will tell you that he or she has waited week 
after week for leisure to answer a note. Persons of the former 
class, however crowded with business, are always found capable 
of doing a little more, and you may rely upon them in their 
busiest seasons with ten times more assurance than upon the 
idle man. 

It is common in every community to run with business to 
lawyers and doctors who are already fully employed. This is 
not wholly from a senseless veneration for a name ; it is be- 
cause there is an instinct that tells us that the man who does 
much is most likely to do more, and to do it in the best man- 
ner. The reason is, that to do increases the power of doing ; 
and it is far easier for one who is always exerting himself to 
exert himself a little more for an extra purpose, than for him 
who does nothing to " get up steam " preparatory to the same 
end. Give a busy man ten minutes to write a letter, and he 
will dash it off at once ; give an idle man a day, and he will 
postpone it till to-morrow or next week. There is a momen- 
tum in the active man which of itself almost carries him to the 
mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop agoing, 
when a smart one was required to set it in motion. While 
others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the 
vis inertiae, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up 
for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fibre. He walks 
through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his 
side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in pas- 
sing than a vacant man is likely to do by strenuous effort. 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 271 

The men who do the greatest things achieved on this globe 
do them not so much by prodigious but fitful efforts, as by 
steady, unremitting toil, — by turning even the moments to ac- 
count. They have the genius for hard work, the most desirable 
kind of genius. A continual dropping wears the stone. A 
little done this hour and a little the next hour, day by day, 
and year by year, brings much to pass. The largest houses are 
built by laying one brick upon another. How have the men 
who have died millionnaires acquired their wealth 1 Not gener- 
ally by huge windfalls, but by minute and gradual accumula- 
tions. It is not by large sums bequeathed to them one after 
another, or gained -by gigantic schemes of speculation, but by 
economizing the petty sums which so many thoughtlessly 
squander, by saving the cents and dimes and single dollars, 
adding them together year after year, that they have reared 
their pyramid of fortune. So with self-culture, the acquisition 
of knowledge, and the doing of good deeds; the time men 
often waste in needless slumber, in lounging, or in idle visits, 
would enable them, were it redeemed, to execute undertakings 
which seem in their hurried and worried life to be impossible. 

Complain not, then, reader, of your want of leisure to do 
anything. Eather thank God that you are not cursed with 
leisure ; for a curse it is, in nine cases out of ten. What if, to 
achieve some good work which you have deeply at heart, you 
can never command an entire month, a week, or even a 
day % Shall you therefore bid it an eternal adieu, and fold 
your arms in despair 1 No • the thought should only the more 
keenly " prick the sides of your intent," and goad and stimu- 
late and urge you on to do what you can do in this swiftly 
passing life of ours. Try what you can build up from the bro- 
ken fragments of your time, rendered more precious by their 
brevity. It is said that in the United States Mint at Phila- 
delphia, when the visitor reaches the gold-working room, the 
guide tells him that the singular floor is a network of wooden 
bars to catch all the falling particles of the precious metal. 
When the day's labor is done, the floor, which is in sections or 



272 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

parts, is removed, and the golden dust is swept up, to be melt- 
ed and coined. Learn from this the nobler economy of time. 
Glean up its golden dust ; economize with tenfold care those 
raspings and parings of existence, those leavings of days and 
" wee bits " of hours, — so valueless singly, so inestimable in 
the aggregate, — which most persons sweep out into the waste 
of life, and you will be rich in leisure. Rely upon it, if you 
are a miser of moments, if you hoard up and turn to account 
odd minutes and half-hours and unexpected holidays, — the 
five-minute gaps while the table is spreading, the chasms while 
you are waiting for unpunctual persons, — your careful glean- 
ings at the end of life will have formed a colossal and solid 
block of time, and you will die at last wealthier in intellectual 
acquisition, wealthier in good deeds harvested, than thousands 
whose time is all their own. 

There are some men who must do what they do without in- 
terruption. They cannot read or think to advantage except in 
sacred silence. No wave from the wild sea of life must beat 
against their calm retreat. In some quiet, snug loophole they 
must think and toil. Interruptions, distractions of any kind, 
break their threads of thought, and they cannot rejoin them. 
Such persons find it hard to utilize the odds and ends of time. 
There are others who are so constituted that it is almost impos- 
sible for them to be systematic and continuously diligent. They 
can work only by spasms, when the fit is upon them ; compen- 
sating in these paroxysms of activity, by the fine frenzy with 
which they labor, for the seasons in which they loaf or lounge. 
Such " heaven-born geniuses " are a law unto themselves, and 
are daily becoming more and more rare. Most persons, to 
achieve anything, need to be always busy ; and for them it is 
better never to have any idle moments, but always to have 
some work on the anvil to which they can turn their hand. 

It is wonderful what results have been achieved by those 
with whom the clock has never " clicked lazily behind the 
door," who have let none of their moments fall idly to the 
ground. It is related of a German critic that he could repeat 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 273 

the entire Iliad in Greek with scarcely an error. How many- 
years, think you, of his brief threescore and ten, or less, did he 
spend in imprinting the immortal poem on his brain 1 Years 
he had not, nor even months, nor weeks, for he was a j)hysi- 
cian with large practice ; but he contrived to master the old 
bard of Scio during the brief, hurried snatches of time when 
passing from one patient to another. Dr. Mason Good, the 
celebrated English physician, performed a similar feat, having 
translated into English verse the whole of Lucretius during 
his long walks in London to visit his patients. Dr. Darwin 
composed many of his works in the same way. While driving 
about in his sulky from house to house, he jotted down his 
thoughts on little scraps of paper which he carried with him 
for the purpose. Matthew Hale's " Contemplations " were com- 
posed while he was travelling as judge on circuit. Locke 
carried a note-book in his pocket, to catch the scintillations of 
even common conversation. Pope improved the wakeful hours 
of the night. Dr. Eush studied in his carriage while visiting 
his patients, and thus prepared himself to write, not only upon 
professional but other themes, works winch are still almost as 
useful as when first published. Cuvier, the father of Compar- 
ative Anatomy, also studied while passing in his carriage from 
place to place, and by his ceaseless industry did perhaps more 
for the physical sciences than any other man that ever lived. 

The biographer of George Stephenson tells us that the 
smallest fragments of his time were regarded by him as pre- 
cious, and that " he was never so happy as when improving 
them." Franklin stole his hours of study from meals and 
sleep, and for years, with inflexible resolution, strove to save 
for his own instruction every minute that could be won. 
Henry Ivirke White learnt Greek while walking to and from 
a lawyer's office. Hugh Miller found time- while pursuing his 
trade as a stone-mason, not only to read, but to write, culti- 
vating his style till he became one of the most facile and bril- 
liant authors of the day. Elihu Burritt acquired a mastery of 
eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, not by rare gen- 
12* R 



274 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

ius, which he disclaimed, but by improving the bits and frag- 
ments of time which he could steal from his occupation as a 
blacksmith. Mr. Grote, the historian of Greece, whose work is 
by far the fullest and most trustworthy on the subject, and who 
also snatched time from business to write two large volumes 
upon Plato, was a banker. Sir John Lubbock, the highest 
English authority on prehistoric archaeology, has made himself 
such by stealing the time from mercantile pursuits. John 
Quincy Adams, to the last day of his life, was an economist of 
moments. To redeem the time, he rose early. " I feel noth- 
ing like ennui," he said. " Time is too short for me, rather 
than too long. If the day were forty-eight hours long, instead 
of twenty-four, I could employ them all, if I had but eyes and 
hands to read and write." While at St. Petersburg, he com- 
plained bitterly of the great loss of his time from the civilities 
and visits of his friends and associates. " I have been engaged," 
he wrote, "the whole forenoon, and though I rise at six 
o'clock, I am sometimes able to write only a part of a private 
letter in the course of the day." 

Let the young man who complains that he has " no leisure " 
for self-culture or for doing good to others, contrast if he can, 
without a blush, his plea with the resolution of a Roman Em- 
peror * who was burdened with the responsibilities of a world- 
wide empire, — " not frequently, nor without necessity, to say 
to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure ; nor 
continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our 
relation to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occu- 
pations." All the busy workers we have named felt that life, 
though short, is yet long enough, when its moments are econo- 
mized, for every necessary labor. They felt as did Arnault, 
when he replied to the objection of Mcole, on a new work 
being proposed. " We are now old," said Mcole ; " is it not 
time we should rest ] " " Eest ! " exclaimed Arnault, " have we 
not all eternity to rest in 1 " 

There are few persons so engrossed by the cares and labors 

* Marcus Aurelius. 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 275 

of their calling that they cannot give thirty minutes a day to 
self-culture ; and even that time, wisely spent, will tell at the 
end of a year. The affections, it is well known, sometimes 
crowd years into moments, and the intellect has something of 
the same power. Volumes have not only been read, but writ- 
ten, in flying journeys. Dr. Charming knew a man of vigorous 
intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early educa- 
tion, and whose mind was almost engrossed by the details of 
an extensive business, who yet composed a book of much 
original thought in steamboats and on horseback, while visit- 
ing distant customers. These examples are enough, and more 
than enough, to show that the moments commonly wasted 
during a long life by the busiest men would suffice, if avari- 
ciously improved, for the execution of even colossal undertakings, 
which seemingly demand a lifetime of uninterrupted leisure. 
We say, therefore, in the language of that prodigy of industry, 
Goethe, " Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities for good 
actions, but make use of common situations. A long-continued 
walk is better than a short flight." The small stones that fill 
up the crevices are almost as essential to the firm wall as the 
great stones ; and so the wise use of spare time contributes not a 
little to the building up in good proportions, and with strength, 
a man's mind. If you really prize mental culture, or are deeply 
anxious to do any good thing, you will find time, or maice time 
for it, sooner or later, however engrossed with other employments. 
A failure to accomplish it can only demonstrate the feebleness 
of your will, not that you lacked time for its execution. 

" Old-fashioned economists,'' says the eloquent Wirt, " will 
tell you never to pass an old nail, or an old horseshoe, or 
buckle, or even a pin, without taking it up ; because, although 
you may not want it now, you will find a use for it some time 
or other. I say the same thing to you with regard to knowl- 
edge. However useless it may appear to you at the moment, 
seize upon all that is fairly within your reach. For there is 
not a fact within the whole circle of human observation, nor 
even a fugitive anecdote that you read in a newspaper, that 



276 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

will not come into play at some time or other ; and occasions 
will arise when they involuntarily present their dim shadows 
in the train of your thinking and reasoning, as belonging to that 
train, and you will regret that you cannot recall them more 
distinctly." Daniel Webster once repeated with effect an an- 
ecdote which he had treasured in his memory for fourteen years. 

While we thus urge upon the young man who is beginning 
life the necessity of economizing his time, let us not be misun- 
derstood. We advise no such saving of time as will rob him 
of necessary recreation or sleep. Nor do we regard every 
moment in which a man is seemingly idle as really wasted. 
Especially is this true of intellectual pursuits. There are some 
writers who appear to think that every hour in which a man is 
not grinding away, " with malice prepense and aforethought," 
at some set task, — when the mind is left to itself, instead of 
doing compulsory work, — is misspent. John Wesley took 
this view of life, and therefore, as might be expected, de- 
nounced all stop-gaps in passing one's time. " Never be un- 
employed," says he, " never be triflingly employed, never while 
away time." All this looks very plausible, and the last advice 
is just what might have been expected from one of whom Dr. 
Johnson has left this opinion : " John Wesley's conversation is 
good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at 
a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves 
to fold his legs and have out his talk, as I do." Again, that 
great naval hero and sterling man, Lord Collingwood, gives 
the following advice touching the education of his daughters : 
" They should not only read, but it requires a careful selection 
of books ; nor should they ever have access to two at the same 
time ; but when a subject is begun, it should be finished before 
anything else is undertaken." This looks even more plausible ; 
but all history and all experience refute the doctrine. The cat 
at our fireside refutes it ; for she got tired of lying in the same 
corner, cosey and snug and warm though it was, and so went 
over to the opposite, though no whit more agreeable, because 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 277 

she wanted a change. Read on but one subject at a time ! As 
well might one eat but one thing at a time. Must one devour 
an entire ox before he is allowed to change his diet 1 Such 
dietetics can end only in physical or mental scrofula. 

But what is " whiling away time " 1 When a man is roam- 
ing about his library, taking down this book and then that, 
pacing the floor, scribbling on a bit of paper, glancing at a 
magazine or newspaper, whistling a tune, musing by the win- 
dow, looking into the fire, — or when he is sauntering in the 
woods and listening to the melody of the birds, or lolling 
under an old oak and drinking in the music of a babbling 
brook, — is he, though seemingly idle, necessarily "whiling 
away time"? By no means. Where there is a vigorous, 
sleepless, inquiring mind, idleness is impossible. There is no 
hour in the day when the brain is not at work. When not 
browsing in books, it is ruminating ; when not gathering the 
raw material of knowledge, it is elaborating that which has 
been gathered. The mind, if it is not a mere plodding, me- 
chanical mind, is capricious in its workings, and will not be 
tyrannized over. Its methods are saltatory and impulsive. It 
thrives by casualties ; it is powerful obliquely, and not by the 
direct stroke. It loves dearly to assert its independence, and 
will be consulted as to whether it will do this or that. It is 
not a mere machine, and cannot be used as if it were one. It 
must often "gang its ain gait," and sometimes must be left 
alone, even when it stoops to trifles. Many of its processes go 
on unbidden, without our control. In its very highest efforts 
it abhors task-work, and utterly refuses to be a drudge. The 
happiest thoughts, the most brilliant fancies, the aptest simili- 
tudes, are those sudden illuminations, those flashes, which 
come to us in hours of relaxation, of play, when we throw the 
reins upon the neck of our winged steed and let it roam where 
it will. 

" Every kind of knowledge," observes a thoughtful writer, 
" comes into play some time or other ; not only that which is 
systematic and methodized, but that which is fragmentary, even 



278 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

the odds and ends, the merest rag or tag of information. Sin- 
gle facts, anecdotes, expressions, recur to the mind, and, by 
the power of association, just in the right place. Many of 
these are laid in during what we think our idlest days. All 
that fund of matter which is used allusively in similitudes or 
illustrations is collected in diversions from the path of hard 
study. He will do best in this line whose range has been the 
widest and the freest. A man may study so much by rule as 
to lose all this, just as one may ride so much on the highway 
as to know nothing that is off the road." 

It has been truly said that he who sets one great truth afloat 
in the world serves his generation. " To utter one such truth 
is more than to gain a field at Granicus or Waterloo. To 
attain such truths is one of the great objects of living." But 
they are not always obtained by deliberate search or thought. 
He who is apparently whiling away his time may be discov- 
ering some new principle of philosophy or law in science, 
which may become a lever to move the world. When Watt 
sat in the chimney-corner, watching the cover of the tea-kettle 
as the steam forced it up, he only excited the indignation of 
his relative, as he would, doubtless, that of Wesley ; but he was 
designing the steam-engine. Millions had seen the phenome- 
non before, without their curiosity being piqued, and without 
the ability to trace its cause. So with specific gravity and 
gravitation. Thousands and tens of thousands before Archi- 
medes had seen water run over the side of a vessel when an- 
other substance was immersed in it. It needed no ghost or 
ghostly philosopher to tell the world of the fact ; but it was 
the quantity of the water and the depth of the immersion 
together which struck Archimedes. Newton, sauntering 
through an orchard, does not seem to be economizing his 
time; but the falling apple leads to the discovery of gravita- 
tion. Tournefort forsook his college class, that he might search 
for plants in the neighboring fields ; and Smeaton in petticoats 
was discovered on the top of his father's barn, fixing the model 
of a windmill which he had constructed. The one became the 



ECONOMY OF TIME. 279 

celebrated naturalist who enriched science by his discoveries, 
the other the engineer who built the Eddystone Lighthouse ; 
yet Wesley would have said that Tournefort and Smeaton, as 
well as Watt and Archimedes, were triningly employed, whil- 
ing away time. 

Scores of illustrations might be cited to show that the 
amusements to which the young have resorted to while away 
time have colored an intellectual life. Cowley beautifully 
compares these boyish fancies to letters cut in the bark of a 
young tree, which grow and widen with it. Cowley himself 
might never have been a poet, had he not found the " Faerie 
Queen " in his mother's parlor ; Opie might have died in obscu- 
rity, had he not looked " idly " over the shoulder of his young 
companion, Mark Otes, while he was drawing a butterfly. 
" Only reading Eobin, only Eobin " (Eobinson Crusoe), was 
the constant excuse for absence or idleness of a boy whose 
friends little dreamed that he woidd also be distinguished as a 
man of one book, and do more than any other to correct, illus- 
trate, and restore the text of Shakespeare. The "Arabian 
Mghts " used to lie in the parlor window of the old vicarage 
where the father of Coleridge resided ; and he has recorded the 
strange mixture of desire and apprehension with which, in his 
early boyhood, he was accustomed to look at the volume, and 
watch till the morning sun had reached and nearly covered it, 
when, seizing the treasure, he hastened to some corner of the 
play -ground, and soon lost his own identity in the magnificent 
capital of Ali Easchid. Who does not see, says an English 
essayist, that the temperament of the poet was influenced by 
his first love % It often fares with other men as it did once 
with Johnson, that their very idleness — when occasional, not 
chronic — leads to advantage. In his youth, believing that his 
brother had concealed some apples beneath a large folio upon 
an upper shelf in his father's shop, he climbed up to make the 
capture, and, finding no apples, attacked the folio, which proved 
to be the works of Petrarch ; and thus " his very idleness in- 
structed him, and the apples led him to literature." 



280 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTEK XVIII. 

MONEY, ITS USE AND ABUSE. 

The learned pate 
Ducks to the golden fool. — Shakespeare. 

Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men to the extent of that 
sixpence ; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to 
mount guard over him, — to the extent of that sixpence. — Carlyle. 

Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, 
distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly ; yet have no abstract or friarly 
contempt of them. — Bacon. 

Economy is of itself a great revenue. — Cicero. 

No man is rich whose expenditures exceed his means ; and no one is poor 
whose incomings exceed his outgoings. — Haliburton. 

Les dettes abregent la vie. — Joubert. 

THAT Providence has endowed man with the organ of 
acquisitiveness, as phrenologists term it, for wise and benefi- 
cent purposes, and that the civilization, refinement, virtue, 
wisdom, and hapDiness of every community are largely de- 
pendent on its exercise, is a proposition which few persons will 
controvert. It is true there are declaimers on the incompati- 
bility of wealth and virtue ; but they are mere declaimers, and 
nothing more. In the same breath in which they decry the 
pursuit of pelf they will applaud or denounce an institution or 
measure according to its tendency to increase or to diminish the 
public wealth. To cry out against the universal craving and 
struggling for the good things of this world, — for which 
money is a synonyme, — is to waste one's breath upon the air. 
Men will not listen to abstract arguments against the pursuit 
of gold or greenbacks while they fear the " wolf at the door," 
and the most eloquent sermon in praise of poverty provokes 
but a smile. " Believe not much them that seem to despise 
riches," says Bacon ; "for they despise them that despair of 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 281 

them j and none worse when they come to them." Karely is 
their Spartan scorn proof against a fat legacy or other pecu- 
niary windfall ; and in nine cases out of ten their policy is 
that of Virgil's harpies, that sought to excite disgust at the 
banquet which they themselves were eager to devour. 

There is no sacrifice which men will not make for money. 
They will face belching cannon, clog their lungs with the dust 
of coal-mines or with the impalpable powder inhaled in the 
grinding of steel, become workers in arsenic, lead, phosphorus, 
or any of the other substances so fatal to life, blast with gun- 
powder, live amid malaria, and risk their soul's peace in this 
world and the next, for gold. IS"o toil is so exhausting, no 
danger so appalling, that men will not confront the one and 
undergo the other, if the stakes are only sufficiently high. " A 
certain ten per cent.," says an English political economist, " will 
insure the employment of capital anywhere. Twenty per cent, 
certain will produce eagerness. Fifty per cent, positive, auda- 
city. One hundred per cent, will make it ready to trample on 
all human laws. Three hundred per cent., and there is not a 
crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to 
the chance of its owner being hanged." Even the preacher's 
call swells from " the still small voice " to a trumpet peal when 
it comes with the offer of a double salary. Harassing doubts 
and indecision vanish like dew before the logic of five thou- 
sand a year and a parsonage. The parish that is made up of 
rich merchants, brokers, and capitalists, is seen to be " a larger 
field of labor " when viewed through gold spectacles. 

It is easy, of course, to point out the dangers resulting from 
a too intense devotion to money-getting. Bacon calls riches 
" the baggage of virtue " ; and we all know how the Eomans, in 
their heroic days, when they annihilated their foes, expressed 
their contempt by a similar word, impedimenta; and that 
when they grew weak and degraded they clung to their gold, 
with which they bought off the barbarians who invaded them. 
But whatever may be said of the dangers of riches, the dan- 
gers of poverty are tenfold greater. A condition in which one 



282 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

is exposed to continual want, not only of the luxuries but of 
the veriest necessaries of life, as well as to disease and dis- 
couragement, is exceedingly unfavorable to the exercise of the 
higher functions of the mind and soul. The poor man is 
hourly beset by troops of temptations which the rich man never 
knows. Doubtless the highest virtues are sometimes found 
to nourish even in the cold clime and sterile soil of poverty. 
Not only industry, honesty, frugality, perseverance amid hard- 
ships and ever-baffling discouragements, but much more miracu- 
lous attributes, as meek contentment, severe self-sacrifice, tender 
affections, unwavering trust in Providence, all are found bloom- 
ing in the hearts of the poorest poor, — even in the sunless 
regions of absolute destitution, where honesty might be ex- 
pected to wear an everlasting scowl of churlishness, and a bit- 
ter disbelief in the love of God to accompany obedience to the 
laws of man. But it is the most insufferable of all cants to 
hear these qualities spoken of as if they were indigenous to 
poverty, when we know that they flourish in spite of it. 

We have had enough of that silly sentimentahsm which 
would canonize the poor because they are such ; which, be- 
cause Jerrold has finely said, " Many a man who now lacks 
shoe-leather would wear golden spurs if knighthood were the 
reward of worth," sees a hero in every chimney-sweep, and 
Wordsworth's pedler in peripatetics who probably much more 
resemble Canning's knife-grinder. Poverty is a condition 
which no man should accept, unless it is forced upon him as an 
inexorable necessity or as the alternative of dishonor. No 
person has a right voluntarily to place himself in a position 
where he will be assailed hourly by the fiercest temptations, 
where he will be able to preserve his uprightness only by a 
strength little short of angelic, and where he will be liable at 
any moment to become by sickness a burden to his friends. 
Every man, too, should make some provision for old age ; for 
an old man in the poor-house, or begging alms, is a sorry sight, 
and suggests the suspicion, however ill-founded, that his life 
has been foolishly, if not viciously spent. It is true we should 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 283 

not be over-anxious about the morrow ; but they strangely 
misunderstand the spirit of our Saviour's teachings, who think 
that words spoken with reference to the genial climate and the 
simple modes of living in Judea have a literal application in 
the high latitudes and amid the desperate competitions in 
which so many millions live in this country and in this nine- 
teenth century. 

We say, therefore, that the philosophy which affects to teach 
us a contempt of money does not run very deep. Indeed, it 
ought to be clearer to philosophers than to other men that 
money is of high importance, and that its importance increases 
with every generation. So manifold are its bearings upon the 
lives and characters of mankind, that, as Henry Taylor ob- 
serves, in his " Notes on Life," an insight which should search 
out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations would penetrate 
into almost every cranny of his nature. " He who knows, like St. 
Paul, how to spare and how to abound, has a great knowledge : 
for, if we take account of all the virtues with which money is 
mixed up, — honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, 
forethought, self-sacrifice, — and of their correlative vices, 
it is a knowledge which goes near to cover the length and 
breadth of humanity ; and a right measure and manner in get- 
ting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and 
bequeathing would almost argue a perfect man." 

It is money, or rather the want of it, which makes men 
workers. It is the appetizing provocative that teases the busi- 
ness nerve of more than half the world ; while most of the re- 
sults of ingenuity, skill, intellect, tact, address, and competition, 
depend upon its unremitting pursuit. Want of money is the 
jjreat principle of moral gravitation, the only power that is 
strong enough to keep things in their places. It is this scan- 
tiness of means, this continual deficiency, this constant 
hitch, this perpetual struggle to keep the head above water 
and the wolf from the door, that keeps society from falling 
to pieces. Let every man in the community have, as a rule, a 
few dollars more than he wants, and anarchy would follow. 



284 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

All labor, whether of the hand or brain, would become spas- 
modic and fitful, if, indeed, the great wheel of industry did not 
come to a stand-still. The very labor a man has to undergo, 
the self-denial he has to cultivate, in acquiring money, are of 
themselves an education. They compel him to put forth intel- 
ligence, skill, energy, vigilance, zeal, bring out his practical 
qualities, and gradually train his moral and intellectual powers. 
Mental discipline may be got from money-getting as real as 
that which is obtained from mathematics ; " the soul is trained 
by the ledger as much as by the calculus, and can get exercise 
in the account of sales as much as in the account of stars." 
The provident man must of necessity be a thoughtful man, 
living, as he does, not for the present, but for the future ; and 
he must also practise self-denial, that virtue which is one of 
the chief elements in a strong and well-formed character. As 
with the acquisition, so with the use of money ; the way in 
which a man spends it is often one of the surest tests of char- 
acter. As Bulwer says in one of the most thoughtful essays 
in Caxtoniana, — " Money is a terrible blab ; she will betray 
the secrets of her owner, whatever he do to gag her. His 
virtues will creep out in her whisper ; his vices she will cry 
aloud at the top of her tongue." 

Again, money is not only character, but it is power. It is 
not merely for the comforts, but for the influence they bring, 
that riches are so intensely desired, so long and painfully 
sought, by any sensible man. It is wealth that, above all 
other things, gives character, standing, and respectability in 
this country. With it, the pygmy in intellect becomes a giant 
in influence ; without it, the best-informed man is but a dwarf 
in power. Now, as in Shakespeare's time, " the learned pate 
ducks to the golden fool." Who does not know what weight 
and significance are imparted to a truism, what raciness to a 
dull jest, if they are backed up by ten thousand a year, 
by bank shares, mortgages, and stocks 1 Eank, talents, elo- 
quence, learning, and moral worth, all challenge a certain de- 
gree of respect ; but, unconnected with property, they have 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 285 

comparatively little influence in commanding the services of 
other men. Admiration they may attract, but it is property 
that gives power. Detached from this, their influence is as 
evanescent as the fragrance of the flowers detached from the 
soil. The soil itself may not claim our respect, but it is only 
by the virtues which they extract from the soil that the flowers 
maintain their beauty, fragrance, and strength. Even the 
ancient Carthaginians, who were republicans, and had no 
hereditary aristocracy, would allow no man to hold office in the 
State unless he was more or less wealthy. It has been truly 
said that the heraldry of America is based on greenbacks. The 
social standing is indicated by the bank-book. The railway 
conductor accents his call, the hotel clerk assigns rooms, the 
dry-goods merchant graduates the angle of his bows by it. 
Even the seat to which the sexton bows you in church is 
chosen with nice reference to your exchequer. 

Again, as civilization advances, human life is becoming more 
and more significant, richer in opportunities and enjoyments. 
Science is multiplying with amazing rapidity the comforts and 
luxuries of life and the means of self-culture, and money is 
the necromancer by which they are placed at our disposal. 
Money means a tight house, the warmest clothing, the most 
nutritious food, the best medical attendance, books, music, 
pictures ; a good seat in the concert or lecture room, 
in the cars, and even in the church ; the ability to rest 
when weary in body or brain, and, above all, independence 
of thought. It is said that in England no man can afford to 
have an opinion who has not an income of two thousand a 
year ; and even in this land of broad acres there are already 
many men who think themselves too poor to indulge in " the 
luxury of a conscience." Every step in life is conditional on 
"the root of all evil." You must pay to eat and drink, to 
sleep, to house and to clothe yourself, and even to breathe. 
Every breath is a consumption of carbon, which must be paid 
for as inevitably as the coal in your grate. The creditor is at 
every man's heels, dogs him in his last moments, and hardly 



286 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

stops short at the graveyard gate. Not only is money thus 
indispensable, but the value of this representative of values 
was never before so great as now. With this talisman, a man 
can surround himself with richer means of enjoyment, secure 
a more varied and harmonious culture, and set in motion 
grander schemes of philanthropy in this last half of the nine- 
teenth century than at any previous period in the world's 
history. And precisely because it means so much, because 
with it life is so rich in possibilities, the want of money was 
never before so keenly felt as now. Though the poor to-day 
have luxuries which a Croesus could not have commanded three 
centuries ago, though " the world must be compassed that a 
washerwoman may have her tea," yet never was poverty so 
hard to bear as to-day. Its pinch is far severer than in Dr. 
Johnson's time ; yet he, with all his philosophy, did not hesi- 
tate to pronounce it a great evil. " When I was running about 
this town a very poor fellow," said he, " I was a great arguer 
for the advantages of poverty. Sir, all the arguments which are 
brought to represent poverty as no evil show it to be evidently 
a great evil. You never find people laboring to convince you 
that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune." 

Want of money is the almost universal disease, which alone 
will explain the weight and sadness which one so often finds 
in the. social atmosphere. " Even passing through the streets, 
how many wrinkled brows and careworn physiognomies we 
meet which we learn to trace to this one source ! The poor 
have no skill at disguising their anxieties. These are written 
in large characters on their whole bearing, and the very title 
we give them reveals the source of their anxieties ; but others 
who have learnt the graceful art of concealment, who wear a 
social smile as part of a liberal education, how often we 
catch their faces betraying, as it were, some process of mental 
arithmetic, as though some sum were being cast up within 
which will not give the wished-for answer ! . . . . How many 
young spirits we see prematurely depressed by this want, — it 
may be the consequence of their own folly ! How many man- 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 287 

ners, tempers, peculiarities, may be interpreted by it ! How 
many people are dull or proud or unsociable from the secret 
irritation of want of money ! How many bright intelligences 
are diverted from their highest development from the same 
cause ! " 

Again, there are men born with a genius for money-making. 
They have the instinct of accumulation. The talent and the 
inclination to convert dollars into doubloons by bargains or 
shrewd investments are in them just as strongly marked and 
as uncontrollable as were the ability and the inclination of 
Shakespeare to produce a Hamlet and an Othello, of Eaphael 
to paint Ms cartoons, of Beethoven to compose his symphonies, 
or Morse to invent an electric telegraph. As it would have 
been a gross dereliction of duty, a shameful perversion of gifts, 
had these latter disregarded the instincts of their genius and 
engaged in the scramble for wealth, so would a Kothschild, an 
Astor, and a Peabody have sinned had they done violence to 
their natures, and thrown their energies into channels where 
they would have proved dwarfs, and not giants. The mission 
of a Lawrence or a Cornell, equally with that of an Agassiz, a 
Bierstadt, or a Powers, is defined in the faculties God has given 
him ; and no one of them has a right to turn aside from the 
paths to which His finger so plainly points. Academies, col- 
leges, hospitals, museums, libraries, railroads, — none of which 
could have been possible without their accumulations, — are 
the proofs of their usefulness ; and though the millionnaire too 
often converts his brain into a ledger and his heart into a mill- 
stone, yet this starvation of his spiritual nature is no more 
necessary in his pursuit than in that of the doctor or the law- 
yer. Agassiz is reported to have said, half scornfully, that he 
had " no time to make money," having given himself to sci- 
ence. But how could he get leisure to study the secrets of 
nature, if others had not made money for him'? 

Let us, then, abandon the affectation of despising money, 
and frankly own its value. Let us even admit that more per- 
sons are ruined by under-estimation of the value than by greed 



288 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

of gold ; that even in our great cities, where life is at white 
heat, and men stake body and soul on the prizes of the stock- 
board, there are twenty men who need incitements to industry 
and frugality where there is one who needs to be checked in 
the fierce pursuit of riches. But let us remember, at the same 
time, the danger of forgetting the end in the means, and 
attaching more importance to gold itself than to the things 
which it will purchase. Let us remember the warning of 
" holy George Herbert " : — 

" Wealth is the Conjurer's Devil, 
Whom, when he thinks he hath, the Devil hath him. 
Gold thou mayst safely touch ; but if it stick 
Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick." 

Especially should the business man, who is tempted to sacri- 
fice everything to the golden calf, be cautioned against the 
common fallacy that happiness will increase in proportion to 
his gains. Dr. Johnson, indeed, once argued to the contrary. 
" If six hundred pounds a year," he said, " procure a man more 
consequence, and of course more happiness, than six pounds a 
year, the same proportion will hold as to six thousand, and so 
on as far as opulence can be carried." The facts do not sustain 
this theory. It may be doubted whether large possessions do 
not bring as many pains as pleasures. After one has enough 
to satisfy every reasonable want, to give free play to all his 
tastes in art, literature, or science, it may be questioned 
whether any addition to his wealth does not bring more anxi- 
ety and responsibility than enjoyment. Bacon wisely remarks 
that a large fortune is of no solid use to the owner, except to 
increase his means of giving; "the rest is but conceit; the 
personal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great riches." 

The owner of capital really reaps the smallest portion of the 
advantages which flow from its possession, he being, in fact, 
but a kind of head bookkeeper, or chief clerk, to the business 
community. Though rich as Eothschild, he can neitb^r eat, 
drink, nor wear more than one man's portion of the good things 
of life. The Astors and Stewarts, whose wealth is counted by 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 289 

tens of millions, are, after all, only the stewards of the nation, 
and, however selfish, grasping, or miserly they may be, are 
compelled, even when they least desire to do so, to use their accu- 
mulations for the public good. Their money-making talents 
enable them to employ their capital, which would soon melt 
away in the hands of a spendthrift or bad financier, to promote 
the common welfare and to increase the general prosperity. 
The rich man in this country, who is ambitious to increase his 
riches, does not waste his money in luxuries or foolish schemes, 
but, as one has well said, he invests it in all sorts of enter- 
prises, to the selection of which he brings enormous natural 
shrewdness, strengthened by the experience of a lifetime, and 
in every one of which it is devoted wholly to the employment 
of labor. " If he puts it in unproductive real estate even, as 
he doubtless does sometimes, he releases some one else's money, 
which goes into* production. If he builds houses to let, he em- 
ploys labor and helps to lower rents ; if he makes railroads, he 
employs miners, iron-founders, machinists, and helps to trans- 
port commodities; if he goes into spinning and weaving, or 
gardening, the result is still the same, — labor is employed, and 
employed with such sagacity that it is sure to return the capi- 
tal and something more. If he loaded himself with diamonds, 
filled himself every day to the chin with French dishes and 
wines, and wore cloth of gold, and lived in a palace, it would 
be found that his salary was low. If we dismissed him, that 
is, took his property from him, and employed a philanthropist 
or editor or Lyceum-lecturer to manage it in the interest of 
1 humanity,' the probabilities are that there would not be a cent 
of it left at the end of five years. It would have been put 
mto the production of goods that nobody wanted, of roads on 
which nobody would travel, or stolen by knaves and wasted by 
visionaries." 

These truths are well illustrated in the anecdote told some years 
ago of two men who were conversing about John Jacob Astor's 
property. Some one was asked if he would be willing to take 
care of all the millionnaire's property — ten or fifteen millions of 



290 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

dollars — merely for his board and clothing. " ~No ! " was the 
indignant answer ; "do you take me for a fool 1 " " Well," 
rejoins the other, "that is all Mr. Astor himself gets for 
taking care of it ; he 's found, and that 's all. The houses, the 
warehouses, the ships, the farms, which he counts by the hun- 
dred, and is often obliged to take care of, are for the accommo- 
dation of others." " But then he has the income, the rents of 
all this large property, five or six hundred thousand dollars per 
annum." " Yes, but he can do nothing with his income but 
build more houses and warehouses and ships, or loan money 
on mortgages for the convenience of others. He 's found, and 
you can make nothing else out of it." 

If a rich man wishes to be healthy, says Sir William Temple, 
he must live like a poor one. Izaak Walton tells us that there 
are as many troubles on the other side of riches as on this, and 
that the cares which are the keys of riches hang heavily at 
the rich man's girdle. How many men, on reaching the pin- 
nacle of wealth, find, as they look down upon their money- 
bags, that they have only purchased one set of enjoyments by 
the loss of another equally desirable ! "Do you remember, 
Bridget," writes Charles Lamb, with a tender retrospect to his 
poverty, " when you and I laughed at the play from the shil- 
ling gallery 1 There are no good plays to laugh at now from 
the boxes." Many a Sir Epicure Mammon, as he sits down 
with jaded appetite to his lobster salad and champagne, thinks 
with keen regret of the simple repasts which titillated his 
palate when he was poor. The great railway king, Hudson, 
and his wife, feasting with dukes and duchesses in their big 
house at Albert Gate, looked back with many a sigh to the 
days when they ate sausages for supper in the little parlor 
behind their paltry shop in the city of York. 

Nothing, in the abstract, seems easier than to get pleasure 
out of money ; yet to many persons nothing is apparently more 
difficult. It seems delightful to be able to buy everything 
you wish, without a thought of the cost ; yet who does not 
see that the pleasure must pall in the degree that there is no 



MONEY, — ITS USE AXD ABUSE. 291 

difficulty 1 Did the earl to whom Eobins knocked down the 
rare Boccaccio feel in his conquest a tithe of the pride and joy 
which Lamh felt when he bore home that black-letter folio, to 
procure which " the old brown suit was made to hang on six 
weeks longer " 1 

Even the most specious and plausible reason for seeking 
riches, namely, to be above the necessity of a rigid economy, 
or the pressure of debt, Archbishop Whately shows to be 
unsound and deceptive. It is worth remarking, he observes, 
as a curious circumstance, and the reverse of what many would 
expect, that the expenses called for by a real or imagined 
necessity of those who have large incomes are greater than 
those of persons with slenderer means ; and that, consequently, 
a larger proportion of what are called the rich are in embarrassed 
circumstances than of the poorer. This is often overlooked, 
because the absolute number of those with large incomes is so 
much less, that, of course, the absolute number of persons 
under pecuniary difficulties in the poorer classes must form a 
very large majority. But if you look to the proportions, it is 
quite the reverse. Take the number of persons of each amount 
of income, divided into classes from $500 per annum up to 
$ 500,000 per annum, and you will find the percentage of 
those who are under pecuniary difficulties continually augment- 
ing as you go upwards. And when you come to sovereign 
States, whose revenue is reckoned by millions, you will hardly 
find one that is not deeply involved in debt ; so that it would 
appear, the larger the income, the harder it is to live within it. 
In other words, the tendency to spend increases in a greater ratio 
than the wealth ; and hence competence has been wittily defined 
as three hundred a year more than you possess. 

The insufficiency of mere wealth alone to confer happiness 
was strikingly illustrated in the life of Xathan Myers Eoths- 
child, the great Jew banker, who died in London some years 
ago, " one of the most devoted worshippers that ever laid a 
withered soul on the altar of Mammon." For years he wielded 
the purse of the world, opening and closing it to kings and 



292 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

emperors as he listed ; and upon certain occasions was supposed 
to have had more influence in Great Britain than the proudest 
and wealthiest of its nobles, perhaps more than the two houses 
of Parliament taken together. He once purchased bills of 
the government in a single day to the amount of £4,000,000, 
and also the gold which he knew the government must have 
to pay them ; and with the profits of a single loan purchased 
an estate which cost him £ 150,000. Yet, with the clearest 
and widest comprehension in money matters, with the most 
piercing insight into all possible causes affecting the money 
market, and with ingenuity to effect the profoundest, most 
subtle, and most unsuspected combinations, — an ingenuity 
before which all the other prodigies which have from time to 
time appeared sink into nothing, — he was, withal, a little soul. 
He exercised his talents and powers of calculation, not only 
for the accumulation of millions and the management of 
national creditors, but also for the determination of the smallest 
possible pittance on which a clerk's soul could be retained in 
connection with his body. To part with a shilling in the way 
of charity cut him to the heart. One of his grand rules, 
" never to have anything to do with an unlucky man or place," 
— which was also a principle of John Jacob Astor, — however 
shrewd in a worldly point of view, was the very quintessence 
of selfishness and mammon-worship. " I have seen many 
clever men, very clever men," he used to say, " who had not 
shoes to their feet. I never act with them." He was, in short, 
a thorough-going mammon-worshipper, whose soul had been 
converted into a machine for coining guineas, and every noble 
emotion, every immortal longing, died within him. Guineas 
he did coin to a sum that seems almost fabulous ; but, with 
all his colossal wealth, he was profoundly unhappy, and with 
sorrowful earnestness exclaimed to one congratulating him on 
the gorgeous magnificence of his palatial mansion, and thence 
inferring that he was happy : " Happy ! me happy ! " 

Those who think Bothschild's experience singular may be 
still further enlightened by that of Stephen Girard. When sur- 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 293 

rounded with, riches, and supposed to be taking supreme delight 
in the accumulation of wealth, lie thus wrote to a friend : "As 
to myself, I live like a galley-slave, constantly occupied, and 
often passing the night without sleeping. I am wrapped up in 
a labyrinth of affairs, and worn out with cares. I do not value 
a fortune. The love of labor is my highest motive. When I 
rise in the morning, my only effort is to labor so hard during 
the day that, when night comes, I may be enabled to sleep 
soundly." 

To conclude : money is a good thing, of which every man 
should try to secure enough to avoid dependence upon others, 
either for his bread, or his opinions ; but it is not so good a 
thing that, to win it, one should crawl in the dust, stoop to a 
mean or dishonorable action, or give his conscience a single pang. 
Money-getting is unhealthy when it impoverishes the mind, 
or dries up the sources of the spiritual life ; when it extin- 
guishes the sense of beauty, and makes one indifferent to the 
wonders of nature and art ; when it blunts the moral sense, 
and confuses the distinction between right and wrong, virtue 
and vice ; when it stifles religious impulse, and blots all 
thought of God from the soul. Money-getting is unhealthy, 
again, when it engrosses all one's thought, leads a man to 
live meanly and coarsely, to do without books, pictures, music, 
travel, for the sake of greater gains, and causes him to find his 
deepest and most soul-satisfying joy, not in the culture of his 
heart or mind, not in doing good to himself or others, but in 
the adding of eagle to eagle, in the knowledge that the money 
in his chest is piled up higher and higher every year, that his 
account at the bank is constantly growing, that he is adding 
bonds to bonds, mortgages to mortgages, stocks to stocks, and 
may say to himself, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 
many years." 

There is, indeed, no more pitiable wretch than the man who 
has mortgaged himself, soul and body, to Mammon, — in whom 
the one giant passion for gold has starved every other affection ; 
no more painful spectacle than to see a man dragging his man- 



294 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

hood at the heels of his employment, losing life for the sake 
of the means of living, disregarding the celestial crown held 
over his head, and raking to himself the straws, the small 
sticks, and dust of the earth. The poorest of all human beings 
is the man who is rich in gold, hut intellectually and spiritual- 
ly bankrupt, — magnets inter opes inops. As Cowley says, 
" the poor rich man 's emphatically poor." Grant the utmost 
that can be said of the necessity and the value of money, it 
will still remain forever true that life is more than the means 
by which it is sustained, more than dwellings, lands, mer- 
chandise, stocks, bonds, and dividends, more even than food 
and raiment. All things are for the mind, the soul, the divine 
part within us ; and if this, our true self, is dwarfed and 
starved, the most royal worldly possessions only serve to set 
forth by contrast its deep poverty and servitude. 

Let every one, then, who wishes to get on in the world, 
justly estimate the value of money. Let him neither, on the 
one hand, make it the only gauge and object of success, nor, 
on the other, affect for it a philosophic contempt which the 
necessities of life will compel him to unlearn. Let him neither 
strive for a mere living, nor (unless he has a rare genius for 
money-making,) for a great fortune, but gather gear, as Burns 
says, — 

" By every wile 

That 's justified by honor ; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge, 

Nor for a train attendant, 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent." 

A great deal has been written on the art of money-getting ; 
but, though comparatively few become rich, there is no real 
secret about it. The pith of the world's wisdom on it is con- 
densed into a few proverbs. To work hard, to improve small 
opportunities, to economize, to avoid debt, are the general rules 
in which is summed up the hoarded experience of centuries, 
and the most sagacious writers have added little to them. Of 
all the objects which a man can propose to himself, that of 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 295 

money-making is the simplest and most attainable, provided lie 
will take the proper steps. To become an artist, a statesman, 
an orator, a poet, or a scholar, of high ability, is what few per- 
sons can expect. In some callings not even the most indefati- 
gable effort and the most exhaustless patience are sure to win 
success. The man, on the contrary, who strives to gain money, 
knows that he is following no chimera, no phantom or will-o'- 
the-wisp, which will forever beckon him on, yet forever baffle 
him, or which, if attained, will only mock his expectations. 
He toils for a definite end, and there is no sense of incongruity 
between his toil and his hope. Money-getting is a pursuit in 
which almost any diligent, earnest, prudent man may hope to 
get on, without brilliant talents or genius. Any beginner in 
life who has mastered the three E's, " Beading, 'Eitin', and 
'Bithmetic," may hope to become independent, if not rich, if he 
will but work persistently, be temperate, and save a part of his 
earnings. Mediocre abilities will suffice for this end, nay, may 
prove more advantageous than the most dazzling mental gifts. 
There is no workingman in good health who may not be- 
come independent, if he will but carefully husband his receipts, 
and guard jealously against the little leaks of useless expendi- 
ture. But, to become independent, one must be willing to pay 
the price. He must be industrious, and he must be prudent. 
Perhaps the hardest of these rules to follow is the latter. 
There are a hundred persons who can work hard, to every ten 
who can properly husband their earnings. The classes that toil 
the hardest squander most recklessly the money they earn. 
Instead of hoarding their receipts, so as to provide against -sick- 
ness or want of employment, they eat and drink up their earn- 
ings as they go, and thus in the first financial crisis, when mills 
and factories stop, and capitalists lock up their cash instead of 
using it in great enterprises, they are ruined. Men who thus 
live " from hand to mouth," never keeping more than a day's 
march ahead of actual want, are little better off than slaves. 
They are not their own masters, but may have at any moment 
to choose between the alternatives of bondage or starvation 



296 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

They cannot help being servile, for they know they can neither 
command their time, nor choose how and where they shall live. 

To one who has seen much of the miseries of the poor, it is 
hard to account for this short-sightedness of conduct ; but 
doubtless the main cause is the contempt with which they are 
wont to look upon petty savings. Ask those who spend all as 
they go why they do not put by a fraction of their daily earn- 
ings, and they will reply, " That 's of no use ; what good can the 
saving of a few cents a day, or an occasional dollar, do 1 If I 
could lay by four or five dollars a week, that would ultimately 
amount to something." It is by this thoughtless reasoning that 
thousands are kept steeped to the lips in poverty, who by a 
moderate degree of self-denial might place themselves in a 
state of comfort and independence, if not of affluence. They 
do not consider to what enormous sums little savings and little 
spendings swell, at last, when continued through a long series 
of years. 

What laborer is there in good health who may not save 
from his earnings fifty dollars a year ? Yet this paltry sum, 
compounded at six per cent, interest, amounts to $ 650 in ten 
years, $ 1,860 in twenty, $ 3,950 in thirty years, and $ 7,700 
in forty years ; thus securing a snug provision for old age by the 
saving of less than fourteen cents per day ! How impercep- 
tibly may this last sum, or one twice as great, slip through one's 
fingers in the gratification of habits worse than useless, without 
a thought of the vast aggregate to which it finally amounts ! 
What clerk or workingman, that spends twenty cents a day 
for a couple of cigars, dreams that by this expenditure, with 
the accumulated interest, he will in fifty years have smoked 
away twenty thousand dollars 1 Yet a man who by a life of 
industry had laid by such a sum would, in most country 
towns, be deemed rich. It is a hard thing to begin the world 
without a dollar, and yet hundreds of men, by petty savings at 
the outset of their career, have amassed large fortunes from a 
single shilling. Among the capitalists in one of our large 
cities some years ago was a builder, worth probably some hun- 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 297 

dreds of thousands, who began life as a bricklayer's laborer at 
a dollar a day. Out of that small sum he contrived to save 
fifty cents a day, and at the end of the first year had laid up 
$182, from which moment his fortune was made. Like a 
hound upon the right scent, he was on the track of riches, and 
the game, sooner or later won, was sure to be his own. Of a 
leading firm in [New York city, which some years ago had accu- 
mulated an immense property, it is stated that both members 
came to that city without a cent, and swept the very shop 
wherein they afterwards made their fortunes. Like the 
builder, they had an indomitable spirit of industry, perseve- 
rance, and frugality, and so the first dollar became the founda- 
tion of a million. 

The persons who despise small savings as unworthy of their 
care are ignorant of the main object of making them in early 
life, which looks not chiefly to the saving itself, but to the for- 
mation of a habit of economy. It is true, the saving of a few 
cents is in itself of little moment ; but if the habit of saving 
a penny or two, whether in money or any other kind of prop- 
erty, once becomes fixed, and the thoughts be turned in the 
direction of advancement, the accumulation will go on and be 
ultimately successful. Hence it has been wisely said that there 
is no revolution in the history of a man so important in its 
consequences as that which takes place at the moment of the 
first saving. As it is the minutes that make the hours, so it is 
the pennies that make the pounds, the cents that make the 
dollars ; and he who scrupulously economizes the former need 
give himself no concern about the latter, for the habit of look- 
ing sharply after them will have insensibly formed itself. It is 
for this reason that the beginning of a deposit, however small, 
in a savings-bank, may be regarded as the crisis of many a 
moral destiny ; for from that moment the person ceases to be 
a slavish dependant, without manliness or self-respect, and be- 
comes a free, independent, self-reiving man, who is under no 
bondage but that of kindness to his fellows, of which he now 
has the means. 



298 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

" Whatever your means be," says Sir Edward Lytton Bui- 
wer in an excellent essay upon " The Management of Money," 
" so apportion your wants that your means may exceed them. 
Every man who earns but ten shillings a week can do this if 
he please, whatever he may say to the contrary ; for, if he can 
live upon ten shillings a week, he can live upon nine and 
elevenpence. In this rule mark the emphatic distinction be- 
tween poverty and neecliness. Poverty is relative, and there- 
fore not ignoble. Neediness is a positive degradation. If I 
have only £ 100 a year, I am rich as compared with the major- 
ity of my countrymen. If I have £ 5,000 a year, I may be 
poor compared with the majority of my associates, and very 
poor compared to my next-door neighbor. With either of 
these incomes I am relatively poor or rich ; but with either of 
these incomes I may be positively needy or positively free 
from neediness. With the £100 a year I may need no man's 
help ; I may at least have ' my crust of bread and liberty. ' 
But with £ 5,000 a year I may dread a ring at my bell ; I may 
have my tyrannical masters in servants whose wages I cannot 
pay; my exile may be at the fiat of the first long-suffering 
man who enters a judgment against me ; for the flesh that lies 
nearest my heart some Shylock may be dusting his scales and 
whetting his knife. Nor is this an exaggeration. Some of the 
neediest men I ever knew have a nominal £ 5,000 a year. 
Every man is needy who spends more than he has ; no man is 
needy who spends less. I may so ill manage my money, that, 
with £5,000 a year, I purchase the worst evils of poverty, — 
terror and shame ; I may so well manage my money, that, with. 
.£100 a year, I purchase the best blessings of wealth, — safety 
and respect." 

One of the reasons why many persons refuse to practise, 
economy is that it is associated in their minds with meanness. 
They look upon it as degrading to a man of spirit and lofty- 
impulses ; as the virtue of little, contracted minds. ~No doubt 
the practice of saving may be carried too far. It is said that 
the Earl of Westminster, who owns a park ten miles long and. 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 299 

has an income of four millions of dollars a year, once dis- 
mounted from his horse, when riding out, on missing a button 
from his coat, and retraced his steps for some distance till he 
found it. The expediency of such savings may be questioned. 
Dr. Johnson once said, that " he who drinks beer, thinks beer " ; 
and it is equally true that those who occupy themselves with 
endless cares for small savings get " to think candle-ends " as 
their reward. It has been justly doubted whether, among the 
classes of men who, whether they are economical or not, are 
sure never to go to bed hungry, there is anything in the 
accumulation of money to compensate for the deterioration of 
mind and feeling which is almost sure to accompany the pur- 
suit of so trumpery an end as screwing fourpence a week out 
of the butter bill. But economy is a wholly different thing 
from penuriousness ; so different, indeed, that it is only the 
economical man who can afford to be liberal, or even to live 
with ease and magnanimity. 

Wellington kept an exact account of all the moneys he 
received or paid ; and Washington, who was not a small man, 
did not disdain to watch his expenditures and to scrutinize the 
little items in the outgoings of his household. Not only the 
independence of individuals, but that of states, depends upon 
the practice of this virtue. AYhat is the secret of England's 
greatness ? Is it not her savings 1 Is it not evident that pub- 
lic wealth, in the long run, can only flow from private pros- 
perity? that it cannot increase when individual expenditure 
exceeds private income ? Surely, the system that is grand for 
a state cannot be mean for the individual. The truth is, no 
amount of means or earnings can justify waste or profusion, 
either by a nation or a private person. God himself cannot 
afford to be extravagant. Even when displaying His infinite 
power to the multitude, he teaches the needful lesson of econ- 
omy. The miracle of the loaves and fishes ends with the 
command " to gather up the fragments that remain, that noth- 
ing may be lost." The autumn leaves are saved to manure the 
next year's crops, and the bodies of the dead fatten Sadowa's 



300 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

soil for the future seed-time. Nature knows no waste; she- 
utilizes the smallest atoms ; then why should man deem it 
degrading to husband his means for future wants and neces- 
sities ? 

Again, every man who would get on in the world should, 
as far as possible, avoid debt. From the very outset of his ca- 
reer he should sternly resolve to live within his income, how- 
ever paltry it may be. The art of living easily as to money is 
very simple ; it is, as Bulwer advises in the passage already 
quoted, to pitch your scale of living one degree below your 
means. All of the world's wisdom on the subject is most 
tersely epitomized in the words of Dickens's Micawber : "An- 
nual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nine- 
teen six, result happiness. Annua] income twenty pounds, an- 
nual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." 
Mr. Micawber's experience, so vividly depicted by Dickens, is 
that of thousands whose whole lives are made miserable by the 
folly of living beyond their means. In this country, especially 
since the late war, there has been a growing tendency in all 
classes of society to overspend. In every town and village there 
is a fearful ambition abroad for being " genteel." One half of 
our families are engaged in a perpetual and desperate struggle 
to keep up appearances, — to pass for that which they are not. 
They have neither patience nor courage to go on in the paths 
to which God has appointed them, but must needs force them- 
selves into some fashionable state to which they have called 
themselves, and where they may bask in the smiles of Mrs. 
Grundy. Everywhere " there is a constant struggle and pres- 
sure for front seats in the social amphitheatre, in the midst of 
which all noble, self-denying resolve is trodden down, and 
many fine natures are inevitably crushed to death." Marrying 
early, the young lawyer, merchant, or mechanic is not content 
to begin life in the simple style in which his father began, in- 
creasing his comforts as his earnings increase ; but he must live 
from the very start as the veterans of his calling live after 
years of toil and economy. The rents he pays, the furniture 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 301 

and ornaments of his house, the luxuries of his table, the num- 
ber of his servants, the clothes of himself and family, his ex- 
penditures for opera-tickets, concerts, lectures, hackney coaches, 
— not to include the cost of what Charles Lamb would call his 
"virtuous vices," such as smoking, etc., or dinners at Delmon- 
ico's, — ■ are all far above his means. The result is, he gets into 
debt, then more deeply into debt, falls into the clutches 
of Shylock, is fleeced of large sums for interest, struggles vainly 
in the toils in which he is involved, becomes desperate, and 
mismanages his business or half does his work, and at last, 
after floundering and stumbling on for a few months or 
years, with inevitable bankruptcy staring him in the face, suc- 
cumbs under the heavy load of debts, duns, and anxiety, when 
the curtain falls, and the wretched play of " Keeping up Ap- 
pearances " is ended. 

"When will this wretched state of things cease 1 Never till 
beginners in life have learned to feel a horror for debt ; till 
those who are ambitious of display learn that it is dishonest 
to spend what they have not earned, — that, as Sir Charles 
Napier once said to some of his officers, " to drink unpaid-for 
champagne and unpaid-for beer, and to ride unpaid-for horses, 
is to be a cheat, and not a gentleman." Of all the foes to 
human prosperity and happiness, there is none more deadly 
than debt. Dr. Johnson held it to be not only an inconven- 
ience, but a calamity. " Let it be your first care," he says, 
" not to be in any man's debt. Resolve not to be poor ; what- 
ever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human 
happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some 
virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult. It lowers 
a man in self-respect, places him at the mercy of the tradesman 
and his servant, and renders him a slave in many respects ; for 
he can no longer call himself his own master, nor boldly look 
the world in the face." It is also difficult for a man who is 
constantly in debt to be truthful j hence it is said that " lying 
rides on debt's back." 

" An iiiithrift was a liar from all time* 
Never was a debtor that was -not deceiver." 



302 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Many a ruined man dates his downfall from the day when he 
began borrowing money. It is easy to avoid the first obliga- 
tion ; but, that incurred, others speedily follow, one necessitat- 
ing another ; every day the poor victim gets more and more 
inextricably entangled ; then follow pretexts, excuses, lies, till 
all sense of shame is lost, the whole life becomes a makeshift, 
and the debtor, despairing of deliverance from his embarrass- 
ments, deliberately resolves to live by indirect robbery and 
falsehood. " I am astonished," says Sir Eichard Steele, "that 
men can be so insensible of the danger of running into debt. 
One would think it impossible that a man who is given to con- 
tract debts should not know that his debtor has, from that 
moment in which he trangresses payment, so much as that 
demand comes to in his debtor's honesty, liberty, and for- 
tune Can there be a more low and servile condition 

than to be ashamed or afraid to see any man breathing 1 Yet 
he that is in debt is in that condition with relation to twenty 
different people. The debtor is the creditor's criminal, and all 
the officers of power and state, whom we behold make so poor 
a figure, are no other than so many persons in authority to 
make good his charge against him. Human society depends 
on his having the vengeance the law allots him ; and the 
debtor owes his liberty to his neighbor as much as the mur- 
derer does his life to his prince." Yet the author of these 
remarks, who could so vividly depict the miseries of in- 
debtedness, was perpetually struggling with them, and pre- 
sents in his whole career one of the most melancholy exam- 
ples which biography affords of the moral sacrifices which are 
so often occasioned by a disproportion between wants and the 
means of gratifying them. When reproached by Mr. Whiston 
for having in the House of Commons given some votes in fla- 
grant contradiction to his formerly professed opinions, he re- 
plied, " Mr. Whiston, you can walk on foot, but I cannot." 
A coach had become so essential to Steele, that, rather than do 
without it, he was willing to abandon his most cherished polit- 
ical principles and do violence to his conscience. 



MONEY, — ITS USE AND ABUSE. 303 

Let every young man who is shocked by the conduct of this 
inconsistent writer avoid the rock on which he split. Let him 
resolve early that he will at all times look his affairs squarely 
in the face, that he will know his exact financial condition, 
and that he will do any work that is honorable, and submit to 
the most pinching privation, rather than plunge into debt. 
Eloquently has Douglas Jerrold said : " Be sure of it, he who 
dines out of debt, though his meal be biscuit and an onion, 
dines in ' The Apollo.' And then for raiment ; what warmth 
in a threadbare coat, if the tailor's receipt be in the pocket ! 
what Tyrian purple in the faded waistcoat, the vest not owed 
for ! how glossy the well-worn hat, if it covers not the aching 
head of a debtor ! . . . . Debt, however courteously it be offered, 
is the cup of a siren, and the wine, spiced and delicious though it 
be, an eating poison. The man out of debt, though with a 
flaw in his jerkin, a crack in his shoe-leather, and a hole in his 
hat, is still the son of liberty, free as the singing lark above 
him ; but the debtor, though clothed in the utmost bravery, 
what is he but a serf out upon a holiday, — a slave to be re- 
claimed at any instant by his owner, the creditor ? My son, if 
poor, see wine in the running spring ; let thy mouth water at 
a last week's roll ; think a threadbare coat the ' only wear ' ; 
and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the littest housing 
place for a gentleman : do this, and flee debt. So shall thy 
heart be at peace and the sheriff be confounded." * 

* Heads for the People. 



304 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MERCANTILE FAILURES. 

To succeed, one must sometimes be very "bold and sometimes very prudeni; 
— Napoleon. 

I venture to point out to you what is the best temperament, namely, a 
combination of the desponding and resolute, or, as I had better express it, 
of the apprehensive and the resolute. Such is the temperament of great 
commanders. Secretly, they rely upon nothing and upon nobody. There is 
such a powerful element of failure in all human affairs, that a shrewd man is 
always saying to himself, "What shall I do, if that which I count upon does 
not come out as I expect ? " This foresight dwarfs and crushes all but men 
of great resolution. — Arthur Helps. 

Let your first efforts be, not for wealth, but independence. Whatever be 
your talents, whatever your prospects, never be tempted to speculate away, 
on the chance of a palace, that which you need as a provision against the 
workhouse. — E. L. Bulwer. 

A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not 
strong enough . — Bovee . 

ONE of the bad features of our American life is the grow- 
ing disposition of our young men to get their living by 
their wits, and to leave manual labor, agricultural or mechani- 
cal, to be monopolized by foreigners. Bodily toil, except of 
the lightest kind, is becoming to Young America more and more 
distasteful. The sons of our farmers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, 
and carpenters no sooner become their own masters than they 
straightway throw down the scythe, the awl, and the hammer, 
and rush to the city to engage in the nobler work of weighing 
sugar, selling tape, hawking books, soliciting insurance, or 
posting ledgers. And yet, if any fact has been demonstrated 
beyond the shadow of a doubt, it is the deceitfulness of the 
apparent facilities for getting rich in cities. The fact that 
while in other careers the mass of men are successful, ninety- 
five at least out of every hundred who embark in commerce 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 305 

either make shipwreck or retire sooner or later in disgust, 
without having secured a competence, has not only been veri- 
fied again and again by statistics, but is a stereotyped observa- 
tion which drops from the lips of business men daily. 

Some years ago General A. H. S. Dearborn, of Boston, who 
had long been acquainted with the leading business men of 
that city, gave it as his opinion that only three men out of 
every hundred doing business there were successful. A gentle- 
man who doubted the truth of this startling statement consulted 
an antiquarian friend who had known all the merchants doing 
business on Long Wharf from 1798 to 1840, and was informed 
that in the latter year only five out of a hundred remained. 
More striking still was the statement of a director of the 
Union Bank, which began its operations in 1798, that, of one 
thousand persons doing business with it, only six at the end 
of forty years remained ; all the rest had failed or lost their 
property. " Bankruptcy," said the director, " is like death, 
and almost as certain ; they fall single and alone, and are thus 
forgotten ; but there is no escape from it, and he is a fortunate 
man who fails young." A person who looked through the 
Probate Office in the same city found that ninety per cent of 
all the estates settled there were insolvent. Yet more discour- 
aging to the commercial adventurer were the conclusions of 
Governor Briggs and Secretary Calhoun, who a few years ago 
gave it as their deliberate opinion, after diligent inquiry, that, 
out of every hundred young men who come from the country 
to seek their fortunes in the city, ninety-nine fail of success. 
To all these statements may be added the opinions of some of 
the shrewdest and most experienced business men of New York 
and Philadelphia, that not more than one per cent of the best 
class of merchants succeed without failing in the former city, 
and that not more than two per cent of the merchants of the latter 
retire on an independence, " after having submitted to the usual 
ordeal of failure." After the crash in 1858 it was stated by high 
authority that there had been annually, for some years previous, 
twenty-seven thousand failures in the United States, for the 



306 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

gross sum of $50,000,000, of which enormous indebtedness only 
$ 10,000,000 was ever recovered by the creditors, — an estimate 
probably below the truth. In short, for every man who thrives 
in trade, counting his acquisitions by thousands of dollars, we 
can find scores of men with whom each day is but a desperate 
struggle to keep their heads above water; and to every one 
who, after again and again trembling on the verge of bank- 
ruptcy, retires at last with money enough to pass his closing 
days in ease and affluence, a hundred might be named who 
wind up the vicissitudes of a long life of toil in utter failure, 
and spend their last days in trying to keep the wolf from the 
door. 

The facts we have stated will seem incredible to those who 
have never weighed or investigated the subject ; and yet the 
proofs are open to every man who has his eyes upon and wit- 
nesses the changes going on around him. Go into any city or 
large town with which you were acquainted ten years ago, and 
you will be startled to see how many signs that once greeted 
the eye on stores and warehouses have been exchanged for new 
ones ; how many names, once familiar as " household words," 
have been blotted from the Business Directory. Indeed, so 
few are the prizes and so numerous the blanks in this seeming 
lottery, that some persons have been inclined to regard luck as 
everything in trade, — experience, sagacity, energy, and enter- 
prise as nothing, if linked to an unlucky star. As we have 
already observed in the chapter on " Good and Bad Luck," 
some of the shrewdest men, with indefatigable industry and 
the closest economy, fail to make money ; others, with appar- 
ently none of the qualities that insure success, are continually 
blundering into profitable speculations, and, Midas-like, touch 
nothing but it turns to gold. The great Chicago fire, which 
beggared hundreds of merchants, mechanics, and professional 
men, and made a hundred thousand men, women, and children 
homeless, doubled and trebled the fortunes of other men, who 
were never insured and never burnt out. But while it must 
be admitted that there is such a thing as luck, meaning by it 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 307 

the occasional operations of causes over which one has no con- 
trol, it would be absurd to ascribe to it the mass of failures. 
Bitterly as the broken merchant may bemoan some mishap that 
has blasted all his schemes and hopes, it is evident that, if 
there are nine shipwrecks to one safe voyage over the sea of 
business, there is some higher law than chance governing the 
matter ; and what this law is — in other words, what are the 
chief causes of bankruptcy — we shall now try to show. 

What, then, are the causes of those failures of business men 
which are so numerous as to make success seem like the draw- 
ing of a prize in a lottery 1 We answer, — the first and most 
obvious cause is the lack of business talents. If there is any 
fact demonstrated by experience, it is that no man can succeed 
in a calling for which Providence did not intend him. Of 
course, it is easy to exaggerate this doctrine. There are some 
men who, though they succeed best in a particular sphere, yet 
have a marvellous flexibility, versatility, and power of adapta- 
tion, which enables them to thrive in almost any pursuit they 
may choose. It has been even said that " the most unhandy 
person is a sort of Eobinson Crusoe ; plant him in a desolate 
island, and he would sprout a twenty-bladed penknife." But, 
in spite of exceptional cases, it may be affirmed that there is a 
work to which each person is fitted, to which he is called by 
his talents and endowments. As Emerson says : " He is like 
a ship in a river ; he runs against obstructions on every side 
but one ; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he 
sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea." 
This easy thing with some men is making money in trade ; but 
there are others to whom it is as difficult as for a man with no 
mathematical talent to calculate an eclipse, or a person with no 
eye for color to paint " The Descent from the Cross." Who 
can wonder that such weaklings soon go to the wall ; that in 
the sharp competitions of modern trade they are outwitted and 
overreached by men born for the business, and who have learned 
its crooks and turns by a long apprenticeship ; and that, after 
stumbling on a few years, committing blunder after blunder 



308 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

through ignorance and lack of sagacity, they are shipwrecked 
by the first financial hurricane that sweeps over the land 1 

But it is needless to dwell on this topic, as we have already 
discussed it at length in the chapter on " The Choice of a Pro- 
fession." 

The next cause of bankruptcies which we shall mention, and 
a very prolific one, is an excessive haste to be rich. Americans 
are always in a hurry when they have an object to accomplish ; 
but if there is any vocation or pursuit in which gradual, slow- 
coach processes are scouted with peculiar detestation, it is that 
of acquiring riches. Especially is this true at the present day, 
when fortunes are continually changing hands, and men are so 
often, by a lucky turn of the wheel, lifted from the lowest 
depths of poverty to the loftiest pinnacle of wealth and afflu- 
ence. Exceptional persons there are, who are content with 
slow gains, — willing to accumulate riches by adding penny to 
penny, dollar to dollar ; but the mass of business men are too 
apt to despise such a tedious, laborious ascent of the steep of 
fortune, and to rush headlong into schemes for the sudden ac- 
quisition of wealth. Hence honorable labor is too often 
despised ; a man of parts is expected to be above hard work ; 
and he is considered the shrewdest fellow who can throw 
double-sixes oftenest in the lottery of speculation. Thus 
we go, racing on like a high-pressure Mississippi steamer in the 
pursuit of fortune, pitching rosin into the furnace to get along 
faster, and piling weights upon the safety valves, until finally 
the boilers burst, hundreds are killed or crippled, and we are 
compelled to stop for a while, until we can get over the fright 
of the explosion. Pretty soon the repairs are made, the steam 
is up again, we are buoyant with confidence, " Hope enchant- 
ing smiles, and waves her golden hair," again we are "going 
it" at a fearful pace, and in due time another crash 
occurs. The warnings of the past are lost upon us ; cautious 
men are voted old fogies, and their advice and admonitions 
clogs on the wheels of enterprise. Americans must be Ameri- 
cans, and blow up as a necessity of their existence. 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 309 

Hardly anything is more fatal to success in business than 
this all-absorbing, grasping anxiety for wealth, which is so 
characteristic of the times we live in. The very ambition to 
be rich, to accumulate what is called " a big pile," and to 
reckon one's property by hundreds of thousands, is self-de- 
feating, and leads to ruin. It blinds the judgment of its vic- 
tim, and lures him into visionary schemes and dangerous spec- 
ulations, till at last he loses all taste for slow and sure gains 
and all capacity for calm and logical reasoning. One of the 
worst consequences to which it leads is overtrading. Instead 
of aiming to do a snug, easily managed, and therefore safe 
business, which will yield a reasonable, but not colossal profit, 
many merchants buy and try to sell double the quantity of 
goods which their capital will justify. Instead of spreading an 
amount of canvas proportioned to the tonnage of their craft, the 
mass of those who embark on the treacherous ocean of trade 
crowd on all sail, and are only ambitious to make the utmost 
possible number of knots an hour. For a while, 

"Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows," 

and to all appearance they will reach the haven of wealth in 
half the time of the slow sailers ; but suddenly, at a moment 
and from a quarter least expected, a squall springs up, and they 
are swept, in spite of every effort, towards a lee shore, and 
speedily go to the bottom. The great fault of many who start 
in the race for riches is, that they are not willing to creep be- 
fore they can walk, to walk before they run, to run before 
they attempt to fly. A man who has a capital of five thousand 
dollars does a business of twenty thousand ; a trader with 
twenty-five thousand is content to do nothing less than a busi- 
ness of a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand ; and the 
possessor of the last-mentioned sum aims at a gigantic traffic, 
which would be justified only by a capital of half a million. As 
in education, dissipation, and all things else, the " fast " sys- 
tem prevails among our merchants, and, rushing along as they 
do at a race-horse pace, a crash, when it comes, produces an 
amount of disaster and misery which is incalculable. 



310 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Another fruitful cause of bankruptcies is speculation. In. 
every community there are men who are determined not to 
work if work can be shirked. Without avowing this determi- 
nation to themselves, or reflecting that they are fighting against 
a law of nature, they begin life with a resolution to enjoy all 
the good things that are accumulated by the labor of man, 
without contributing their own share of labor to the common 
stock. Hence the endless schemes for getting rich in a day, — 
for reaching the goal of wealth by a few gigantic bounds, in- 
stead of by slow and plodding steps. It matters not in what 
such men deal, whether in oroide watches or in watered stock ; 
whether they make " corners " in wheat or in gold ; whether 
they gamble in oats or at roulette ; whether they steal a rail- 
way or a man's money by " gift-concerts," — the principle is in 
all cases the same, namely, to obtain something for nothing, to 
get values without parting with anything in exchange. Every- 
body knows the history of such men, the vicissitudes they ex- 
perience, — vicissitudes rendering the millionnaire of to-day a 
beggar to-morrow, and which have been thus briefly epito- 
mized : — 

" Lundi, j'achetais des actions ; 

Mardi, j'avais des millions ; 

Mercredi, j'etablis mon menage ; 

Jeudi, je fis mon equipage ; 

Le Vendredi, je fus an bal ; 

Et Samedi a l'hopital " ; 

which, freely translated, means 

" Monday, I dabbled in stock operations, 
Tuesday, owned millions, by all calculations ; 
Wednesday, my Fifth Avenue palace began ; 
Thursday, I drove out a spanking bay span ; 
Friday, I gave a magnificent ball ; 
And Saturday, ' smashed ' with nothing at all. " 

Such is the career of thousands in this country. Beginning 
business on Monday, they are reeking and rioting in riches on 
Tuesday, live gorgeously during the week, Saturday morn- 
ing their paper goes to protest, and by Saturday night they 
are vibrating between the sheriff and starvation. " The dark- 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 311 

est day," says Horace Greeley, " in any man's earthly career is 
that wherein he first fancies that there is some easier way of 

gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it He has lost 

the clew to his way through this mortal labyrinth, and must 
henceforth wander as chance may dictate." 

Even of those merchants who start in their careers with a 
determination to avoid all gambling operations, how few perse- 
vere to the end ! How many, after having accumulated a snug 
sum by years of toil and economy, are tempted by the example 
of some lucky neighbor to hazard their laboriously acquired 
fortune in some big speculation, — some attempt to monopo- 
lize a co mm odity, — breaking down in which, they are stripped 
of the earnings of years ! How many lock up their ready cash 
in wild lands or corner lots, which, proving dull of sale, or 
falling in value, are knocked off by the auctioneer's hammer at 
half the cost ! Or perhaps they hire a part of the purchase- 
money, project unwise improvements on the property, cover 
themselves with bonds and mortgages, and finally incur "a 
street debt " of some thousands, which swiftly rolls up to 
double the amount, and crushes the life right out of them. 
There are many such who are literally owned by brokers, — 
who work for them, live for them, and even die for them, — 
die literally of a street debt upon which they have weekly 
exhausted their strength in a frenzied effort to roll it ahead 
from one day to seven. To justify a merchant in the bold 
attempt to monopolize a commodity which is largely produced, 
he should have, not only plenty of cash or credit, but a pro- 
found and exact knowledge of the markets, and of the causes 
of excess and scarcity, which is possessed only by the sagacious 
and discerning few. JS"early all the most successful merchants 
in this country have won their fortunes, not by sudden gains, 
by bold and masterly yet hazardous strokes of speculation, but 
by the slow but sure accumulations of commercial industry. 
Peter C. Brooks, of Boston, who died worth two millions, 
never once in his life indulged in speculation, and, however 
brilliant the prospect of gain, shunned every transaction which 



312 GETTING ON IN THE WOELD. 

required the use of borrowed means. Mr. Lorillard, who died 
immensely rich in New York, pursued a similar course, and 
used often to remark that his prosperity arose from not having 
been in haste to get rich. He launched into no wild and un- 
certain schemes, which risk the earnings of a life on the chances 
of a day, but was content with the regular proceeds of his 
legitimate business. 

Perhaps there is no way in which merchants are oftener 
involved in inextricable embarrassments than by an unwise 
investment of their surplus profits. Many are tempted by 
dazzling bargains to go beyond their depth. Buying when 
money is abundant, they are called on to pay in a time of great 
stringency, and are suddenly ruined. Let the merchant who 
has a surplus capital invest it, not in dead property, but in 
good floating securities, easily convertible into money ; and 
especially let him use it in discounting his own four or six 
months' bills, and his paper will be pronounced "gilt-edged" 
and " fire-proof." Cash and property, in merchandising, it has 
been well observed, are two different things, as the business of 
the trader and that of the capitalist are two different pursuits. 
Of all the dividend-paying investments, stocks, owing to their 
flexibility and to the probability of their yielding cost, or 
nearly cost, in any exigency when the money is needed, are 
the best for the business man ; yet the temptation to speculate 
even in this kind of security should be sternly resisted by all 
who are engaged in trade. A business man has no time to 
watch the stock-market, and when he loses by gambling in 
these securities, he gets little sympathy from those who suffer 
by his failure. On the other hand, a man who is overtaken 
by a sudden and unavoidable calamity does not lose his credit, 
even if he is able to pay but a small percentage of his debts. 
If his capacity and integrity have never been challenged, he 
will be promptly aided in his attempts to retrieve his fortunes, 
and none will extend a readier hand than those who have 
suffered most severely by his losses. 

Another cause of failures is frequent changes of business. 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 313 

Every business has its peculiarities and mysteries, its crooks 
and turns, a knowledge of which, cannot be acquired by 
intuition. Years are required to master the details of any 
branch of trade ; and there are some departments of commerce 
in which one may go on learning for a lifetime. The shrewd- 
est business men will admit, after twenty years' experience in 
a certain trade, that, though they thought themselves wise 
when they embarked in it, they were really very ignorant, and 
that they have not yet exhausted all the facts relating to it. 
Yet, obvious as are these truths, hundreds of men are perpetu- 
ally changing from one business to another, sticking to no one 
long enough to make it profitable. In every occupation they 
encounter a new set of trials and perplexities, are baffled by 
fresh obstacles ; yet they are lured on by new will-o'-the-wisps, 
enticed from their callings by stories of fortunes made in 
other pursuits, and thus spend their lives in changing their 
plans, getting a smattering of many kinds of business, but a 
profound knowledge of none. Hardly anything is more fatal 
to success in business than this impatience for immediate re- 
sults. All those kinds of business which are surest in the end, 
which pay best in the long run, are slowest in beginning to 
yield a return. The truest success in every profession is often 
like the growth of the American aloe, for many years slow and 
imperceptible. Then, all at once, when the time comes, there 
is a crisis. The plant shoots up a stalk ten or fifteen feet high, 
hung with innumerable flowers. To change one's occupation, 
therefore, because he does not start off with a grand dash, is 
an egregious mistake. It is to throw away all the progress he 
has made, all the knowledge he has acquired, in the one 
already begun. " It is," as another has said, " to go back to 
the beginning of the course for a fresh start.. The different 
professions and kinds of business in this respect are not so 
much parallel tracks, where you can be switched from one into 
another without loss of progress, but rather tracks radiating 
froir a common centre. To pass from one to another, you must 
in each case go back to the original station. You must begin 
14 



314 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

your career anew. The comparison, of course, cannot be applied 
with rigor. Yet it has substantial truth." 

A good illustration of these truths is found in the following 
facts stated by an American journalist : " An acquaintance, a 
seed-dealer, stated that for the first five years he could not 
ascertain that he made anything. But he was learning. Be- 
fore ten years he was clearing five thousand dollars per year. 
Another was doing well in manufacturing ropes. But he was 
unstable in mind, and although his friends advised him to 
1 hang to the ropes,' he was not getting rich fast enough ; but he 
meddled with business he had not learned sufficiently, bought 
a mill, bought grain, and then broke a bank by his large fail- 
ure. Some farmers come to the conclusion that cows are the 
most profitable ; purchase animals, erect buildings, and begin 
well. But, it being a new business, they do not succeed as they 
expected ; they might, if they would stick to it. The next 
year they sell their dairy, and buy sheep. The price of wool 
is low that year ; and they hear that much money has been 
made by raising tobacco. Thus they go on, changing from one 
thing to another, and never succeeding in any. Stick to your 
business." 

Another prolific source of bankruptcies is extravagance of 
living, indulgence in luxury beyond their means by the middle 
classes. An English assignee in bankruptcy stated some years 
ago, after examining the books and documents of seventy-six 
bankrupts, that forty-nine had been ruined by expending more 
than they could reasonably hope their profits would be, although 
their business yielded a fair return. Another assignee found, 
after a similar investigation, that, out of fifty-two failures, thirty- 
two had arisen from the same cause, and the rest from impru- 
dent expenditure combined with speculations or bad luck. 
The proportion of men in our own country who are ruined by 
spendthrift habits is probably greater than in Europe. The 
credit system, together with the insane anxiety of merchants 
to " get off " their goods, enables and tempts thousands of men 
and women to gratify their appetites for superfluities beyond 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 315 

their means, and they rush on in the race of extravagance at a 
" killing pace." Especially do the women in our large cities, 
in these high-pressure times, keep up a " two-forty " pace on the 
Fashion race-course. To live in a lofty marble palace, as dreary 
and comfortless as it is stately ; to load the person with gorgeous 
jewelry and apparel, the cost of which would be sufficient to 
set up a retail trader ; to outshine all rivals in the giddy circles 
of ^Newport, Niagara, and Saratoga, — is the height of many 
a woman's ambition, whose husband, instead of discouraging, 
exults in her extravagance, and squanders in sustaining it sums 
which he bitterly regrets when he sees the abyss of bankruptcy 
staring him in the face, and knows not how to steer clear of it. 
The hoop-skirts now in vogue typify the swelling conceit, the 
empty pride and vanity, which, beginning with the upper 
circles, is mimicked and caricatured by all the orders of society, 
from the family of the miilionnaire down to that of the humble 
grocer and fruit-dealer. Few persons estimate the enormous 
sums to which the money needlessly wasted in personal and 
household expenses would accumulate, if saved and put at 
interest. It is said that the merchant who half a century ago 
would have lived upon five hundred dollars a year, now spends 
four thousand. The difference between these two sums for fifty 
years, with the accumulation of compound interest, is over a 
million of dollars. 

Another fruitful cause of bankruptcies is the credit system, 
which is often pushed beyond all reasonable bounds. A mer- 
chant who has heavy notes to lift, on investigating his resour- 
ces finds, instead of cash in his safe or at his banker's, a thick 
pile of "promises to pay" by A., B., and C, doing business 
from a mile to two thousand miles distant, and not one half of 
whom can be relied on in a crisis, when the gulf of bankruptcy 
yawns before him. Formerly men scrupled to take credit, if 
they doubted their ability to pay for goods. That scruple was 
by no means overcome by the thought that in case of fail- 
ure they might obtain a legal discharge. Just because they 
were in earnest, and meant to fulfil their promises to the let- 



316 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

ter, — if necessary, by hard work and stern self-denial, — they 
were cautious about imposing such tasks upon themselves. 
Not so in these days of overtrading and swiftly made fortunes. 
Credit is no longer what it once was, the result of many suc- 
cesses and hard-fought battles with the world, the smallest 
stain upon which is regarded with horror. It has ceased to be 
regarded as a vase of rare and costly workmanship, which year& 
of skill and labor only can bring to the highest perfection, 
but which an unlucky blow may shiver into fragments ; as 
something which should not only be kept spotless, but, like 
Caesar's wife, above suspicion. Debts, as now created, are often 
the frailest of things to lean upon when one's liabilities 
thicken. They are too frequently a mere stake played for in a 
game of law by the debtor and creditor, until the courts and 
attorneys " rake down the pile." 

To such a pitch has the evil sometimes reached, that some 
writers have seriously advocated as a remedy the repeal of all 
laws for the collection of debts. But while banks, the grand 
embodiment and exponent of credit, are allowed to flood the 
country with its symbols, often stimulating speculation, in- 
terrupting the regular course of trade, and seducing merchants 
to their ruin, it is ridiculous to talk of abolishing a system cre- 
ated and authorized by law ; not to mention that such violent, 
Sangrado-like remedies are too much like cutting off one's head 
to cure the toothache. There is no doubt that our country has 
been largely indebted to this system for the rapid and marvel- 
lous development of her productive powers; and therefore, 
though it is now admitted by all our economists, that long 
credit, with its attendant abuses, was the grand cause of the 
financial hurricane that swept over the country in 1858, — 
though this is proved by the fact that the crash came when 
gold was pouring by millions into the land, when we were 
vexed neither by war nor famine, but were exulting in a large 
harvest, and suffering from no external drain, — yet we need 
not expect that the practice of selling goods on time will ever 
be abandoned. The most that can be expected is, that the 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 317 

system will be subject to certain limitations which may pre- 
vent the frightful consequences that flow from its present 
abuse. 

When a vessel is sent on a whaling expedition, or de- 
spatched to China for a cargo of tea, long credit is not unrea- 
sonable, for a year or more may roll by before the merchant 
can get a return. So with the East India and the California 
trades, where goods have to be shipped round Cape Horn. 
The same principle holds good regarding any business where 
a long cycle of time must revolve between the venture and the 
return. New avenues of communication, however, like the 
Pacific Eailroad, are shortening these cycles, and, by the revo- 
lutions they are causing, are rendering long credits less and 
less necessary even here. But is there any analogy between 
these cases and that of a country merchant who buys in the 
city goods which can be brought by steamboat or railroad in a 
few days to his door, and which he can turn into cash in a few 
months'? To sell goods on four or six months to A., B., C, 
and so on throughout the alphabet all over the Northwest or 
South, or any other section of the country, — goods that can 
be bought, shipped from New York to Minnesota or Kansas, 
opened and exposed for sale in a fortnight's time, — is a 
wretched abuse of credit, which nothing but the fiercest com- 
petition among wholesale dealers could ever have led them to 
tolerate. It is an abuse the more intolerable, as it damages both 
debtor and creditor. Goods bought on six months are often 
speedily converted into cash, and the money, lying idle in the 
trader's hands, is invested in wild lands or " Peter Funk " rail- 
road speculations ; meanwhile, at the end of four months, be- 
fore a dollar is paid for the former stock, a fresh one is bought 
with a new " promise to pay " ; and when the first note has 
matured, the promisor has become bankrupt, his bubbles of 
speculation have bursted, and his estate does not pay twenty- 
five cents on the dollar. 

Abuses like this show that the short credit system is the 
only safe one ; and hence after every great crash, like that of 



318 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

1858, it is generally adopted, and for a while rigidly adhered 
to, but the pressure of competition soon "breaks it down. De- 
sirable as it may be, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact thai 
it has many obstacles to overcome which are not generally 
counted upon. In order that the country storekeeper may 
pay cash, or do with short credit from the city trader, he must 
either have a large capital, or must himself sell for cash or on 
short credit to customers who will pay him promptly. All re- 
form in this matter, to be thorough and lasting, must begin 
with the consumer. The sin of the credit system does not lie 
entirely on the shoulders of the jobbers and country traders. 
The farmer, the mechanic, the day-laborer, the lawyer, doctor, 
and clergyman, all who run in debt instead of paying cash for 
the necessaries and the luxuries of life, are equally responsi- 
ble for its existence. So long have all these classes of persons 
been accustomed to pay their bills semi-annually, which prac- 
tically means about once in a year, that years would be re- 
quired to revolutionize the present system. There is no bad 
habit to which men cling with such obstinacy as to that of 
getting and keeping in debt. Cigars, tobacco, " old Bourbon," 
may be exorcised with a far less struggle. No one trader in a 
village can make any headway towards a cash or short credit 
system, except by selling much cheaper than his rivals ; and it 
is doubtful whether this is a sufficiently powerful temptation 
to the mass of purchasers to buy for cash. 

Another cause of failure is the prevalent indisposition to 
look resolutely and squarely at the real state of one's affairs. 
Instead of taking an account of stock every year, carefully 
Weighing and measuring all his goods, allowing for their deteri- 
oration or depreciation, and also for his bad debts, — working 
night and day, if need be, to ascertain his real position, — the 
hopeful man is only anxious to increase his business ; or, if he 
«tops to make an inventory and to see what his balance-sheet 
will show, he refuses to classify his bills payable, counts them 
all good, And values his merchandise at more than it will yield. 
The changes in styles, and the fluctuations in the markets; 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 319 

the overstock of goods not durable in quality ; the loss of in- 
terest, which is certain to accrue before the whole stock is sold ; 
the worthlessness of some of his debtors, and the "shaky" 
condition of others, — are circumstances which are carefully 
noted by the shrewd and cautious trader, but which the over- 
sanguine merchant never looks in the face. The result is, that 
his profits, like those of the shopkeeeper who made a thousand 
dollars one night by simply marking up his goods ten per 
cent., are always on paper, never in greenbacks or gold. It is 
a well-ascertained fact that insolvency is almost invariably ac- 
companied by bad book-keeping. There is hardly one bank- 
rupt in fifty who can tell with any exactness what has become 
of the property which he has had in his possession, what he 
has lost in his trade, and what he has spent in his family, — 
in short, whose accounts are not in a muddle. Out of forty- 
one bankrupts' estates in Great Britain, as returned by an offi- 
cial assignee, twenty-nine kept no proper books and eleven 
none at all. Hence in that country, as in France and the 
Dominion of Canada, every mercantde person is required by 
law to keep proper books of account, without which, says a 
high authority, " it would be almost impossible to trace the in- 
solvent's transactions in nine cases out of ten." 

Again, a not infrequent cause of failures in business is part- 
nerships hastily and inconsiderately entered into with men of 
whom little is known. It is astonishing how thoughtlessly 
men contract this relation with those by whose incompetency 
or knavery they may be suddenly ruined. But we have space 
only to hint at this, and pass to another fruitful cause of fail- 
ures, namely, the lack of liberality in business dealings. Mean- 
ness in all its forms is despicable ; but especially in business 
matters, when it takes the form of scrubbism. There is no 
class of men who labor under a more perfect delusion than 
those who practise upon this principle ; who never risk a dol- 
lar to secure business, unless sure of getting it back again; 
who never pay a cent for printers' ink, whether in circulars or 
advertisements; and who think to get the weather-gauge 



320 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

of all mankind by cribbing sixpences from the bills they incur, 
passing shillings for quarters, and never giving dinners. It 
is true such persons meet sometimes with a degree of success 
which justifies their stinginess to themselves ; but in nine 
cases out of ten it will be found that they have succeeded in 
spite of that quality, its natural tendency being to drag them 
down. Their policy is like that of the farmer who sows three 
pecks of seed where he should sow five, and is recompensed 
for his leanness of soul by reaping ten bushels of grain instead 
of fifteen. An English shopkeeper made it a rule never to 
pay a porter for bringing a burden till the next day ; " for," 
said he, " while the fellow feels his back ache with the weight, 
he charges high ; but when he comes next day the feeling 
is gone, and he asks only half the money." This looks like 
shrewdness ; but never was a policy more suicidal. Selfishness 
is always self-defeating. When the author of such a sentiment 
gets wealth, it is not by his scrubbism, as he perhaps fancies, 
but by his industry, perseverance, caution, and other qualities 
that chance to be associated with his meanness, and which 
would insure far more brilliant results without it. There is 
an old English proverb that " a penny soul never came to two- 
pence " ; and when we consider how extreme narrowness in 
money-dealings disgusts the public, making enemies of those on 
whose good-will fortune greatly depends, and how fatal, too, is 
such narrowness to that spirit of enterprise which is necessary to a 
brilliant success, we shall not deem the old saw an exaggeration. 
It is sometimes said that, if we would get on in the world, 
we must look out for Number One, and be suspicious of our 
neighbors. " Till you know positively that he is honest, treat 
every man as if he were a rogue." Of this cynical and hard- 
hearted maxim a late writer justly says: " If this were a condi- 
tion of success, success would not be worth having, — nay, in- 
deed, it would be wholly intolerable : commend me to a life of 
failure. But it is not a condition of success. To know an hon- 
est man from a rogue, and to act accordingly, is doubtless a 
great thing ; but if we are to treat all mankind on our journey 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 321 

through life as rogues or honest men, why, I throw up my cap 
for the latter. We may be cheated, it is true ; tricked, coz- 
ened, defrauded ; and we may throw away that which, worthily 
bestowed, might have really contributed to our success. It is 
a serious matter to waste our strength, to squander, in this 
manner, the materials of success. Successful men, it may be 
said, do not make blunders of this kind. I am not quite sure 
of that ; besides, who knows but that the strength may not be 
wasted, after all. A good deed, done in a good spirit, can nevei* 
be thrown away. The bread cast upon the waters may return 
to us after many days. This at least I know, that if it be true, 
as I have said, that Providence helps those who help them- 
selves, it is no less true that Providence helps those who help 
others. ' The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by his liber- 
ality shall he stand.' It was not meant that we should stand 
alone in the world. "Whatsoever may be our strength, whatso- 
ever our self-reliance, there are times and seasons when we need 
a helping hand ; and how can we expect it to be stretched out to 
as, if we always keep our own in our pockets 1 And if we do 
wot trust others, how can we hope to be trusted ourselves." 

The history of business teems with illustrations of the bril- 
liant results that flow from a generous, noble-minded policy. 
It was remarked of Lafltte, the celebrated Parisian banker, 
that though the generosity of his nature made him the dupe 
of whoever tried to impose upon him, he yet rose from the 
condition of a penniless clerk to be the first banker of his day, 
and one of the most eminent public characters of his country. 
His case reminds one of the remark of Jenkinson in the "Vicar 
of Wakefield," about his simple, kind-hearted neighbor, Flam- 
borough, whom he had contrived to cheat in one way or another 
once a year ; " and yet," said he, " Flamborough has been regu- 
larly growing in riches, while I have come to poverty and 
a jail." A similar case is that of a Mr. Fowler, a famous beer- 
brewer in Scotland, who died very rich, and was believed to 
have owed his wealth to a benevolent liberality of nature, 
which, taking a professional direction, induced him to make 



322 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

his liquor unusually good. He would go to his vats, and, tasl/ 
ing the infusion, say, "Still rather poor, my lads; give it 
another cast of the malt." By adhering to this course, he obtained 
the highest character as a brewer, and in a few years had a 
large, remunerative sale for his ale throughout Great Britain, 
India, and the Colonies. 

In a discussion some years ago by the directors of an English 
railway about fares and arrangements for the public convenience, 
the chairman is said to have remarked that a hard bargain is 
ever a bad bargain for the apparent gainer, — a maxim to which 
all assented ; and, as a consequence, its spirit being impressed 
on the whole management of the line, a writer hazards the 
prophecy that the road will eventually be among the most 
prosperous in Europe. Such has been and ever will be the 
results of a liberal, whole-souled policy. And is it not reason- 
able, and only reasonable, that he should meet with the most 
triumphant success in business who pursues his ends in this 
spirit, rather than the picayune-minded dealer who adopts a 
selfish, extorting policy? In the one case, it has been truly 
observed, it is himself and a thousand minor influences work- 
ing to the end ; in the other, it is himself working to it, but a 
thousand secret influences working against it. " Considering 
the difficulties which they needlessly raise in their course, the 
successes of the selfish are far more wonderful than t^iose of 
the generous. Where, with competent prudence and skill, there 
is a genuine natural suavity towards others, accompanied by a 
practical liberality according to the measure of the understood 
means, all works well, and ultimate triumph is certain ; but 
the prosperity of the thorough scrub, attained amidst the con- 
tempt and detestation of the public, can never be anything but 
a kind of miracle when it occurs, and, far more probably, it is 
strained after in vain." 

Again, among the most fruitful causes of failures at this day 
is the lack of enterprise. We live in an age of progress, and 
among the proofs of it none is more striking than the change 
which has taken place within a few years in men's ideas touch- 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 323 

ing mercantile education. That the time has come when the 
standard of that education should be raised, when a broader and 
severer culture should be exacted from the candidate for the 
counting-room, is conceded by the veriest fossils of the " old 
fogy " school of merchants. With all the keenness and sharp- 
sightedness of our business men, it cannot be denied that, till 
recently, they have thought more highly of shrewdness than 
of solid sense, and relied more on quick-wittedness^ adroitness, 
and tact, than on a thorough knowledge of the laws of trade. 
For a long time circumstances were such as to exaggerate the 
value of the minor qualities of intellect, and the comic advice 
given some years ago by Blackwood to a trader only burlesqued 
an acknowledged fact. Following riches, argued " old Ebony," 
is like following wild-geese, and you must crawl after both on 
your belly; the moment you pop up your head, off they go 
whistling before the wind, and you see no more of them. If 
you have n't the art of sticking by nature, it was said, you 
must acquire it by art ; put a couple of pounds of birdlime 
upon your office stool, and sit down upon it ; get a chain round 
your leg, and tie yourself to your counter like a pair of shop 
scissors ; nail yourself up against the wall of your place of 
business, like a weasel on a barn door or the sign of the spread 
eagle ; in short, only be a sticker, and you may get fat on a 
rock. 

Such was the golden rule of business in the jog-trot days of 
"Auld Lang Syne," and almost in the present half-century. 
But besides this faith in the value of " sticking " talent, the 
ease with which blunders are repaired, and the broken arch of 
fortune reared again, overweening confidence in their versa- 
tility and power of self-transfer from one pursuit to another, 
and boundless confidence in the exhaustless fertility of their 
ingenuity, are all circumstances which have tended to lower 
the tone of culture among the merchants of this country. But 
now all is changed. The slow, plodding, illiterate, chicken- 
hearted merchant has had his day. The man who would be 
rich, and attain to eminence in his calling in this latter half of 



324 GETTING ON IN THE WOKLD. 

the nineteenth century, must discard the old-fashioned methods 
of getting on in the world, and be abreast with the times. A 
new epoch has been inaugurated, and all things are in a state 
of metamorphosis and revolution. Around us, on every side, 
the new is crowding aside the old, and " improvement " is the 
watchword of the day. Machinery deemed the perfection of 
ingenuity is transformed into old iron by new inventions ; the 
new ship dashes scornfully by the naval prodigy of last year, 
and the steamer laughs at them both. The railroad engine, as 
it rushes by the crumbling banks of the canal, once regarded as 
a marvel, screams out its mockery at the barge rotting piece- 
meal. The cable of the electric telegraph reaches from conti- 
nent to continent, and men's thoughts speed their lightning- 
like course below the monsters of the deep, and through realms 
where neither light nor sound has ever penetrated. Commerce 
has been leavened with the influences which have marked 
these mighty changes, and from a limited and easily compre- 
hended has become a complicated and vast affair. It is no 
longer a mere dollar-and-cent traffic, requiring no apprentice- 
ship ; but a matter tasking the mind to the utmost, to be 
mastered only by the highest sagacity, and after the profound- 
est study of facts, circumstances, and prospects. 

The growth of society, acting on the interests of trade, ex- 
acts from the merchant the broadest and severest culture. No 
judge or juror in civil or criminal case ever had to unravel 
testimony, to sift and weigh conflicting statements, more 
carefully than a great merchant has now to balance probabili- 
ties, and decide what and when it is best to buy and sell. 
Only the sharpest sagacity, the most far-reaching penetration, 
and the soundest judgment, will now enable one to discrimi- 
nate between profitable and ruinous schemes of investment. A 
hundred things now affect the price of wheat, tobacco, sugar, 
cotton, wool, that once had no influence on their value. 
Within a few years articles once unknown, or deemed worth- 
less, such as petroleum, ice, guano, etc., have created a new 
trade ; and who can tell how far the list may yet be extended ? 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 325 

The day has gone by when mere sagacity, dexterity, and tact 
would qualify a man to be a first-rate merchant. A knowl- 
edge of geography, political economy, the manners and cus- 
toms of foreign countries, and a hundred other things, is indis- 
pensable ; and heaven-born genius in turned-down collars is at 
a discount. The times demand men of large, liberal, energetic 
soul ; and the man who insists upon doing business in the old- 
fashioned, jog-trot, humdrum way is as much out of place as 
he who insists on travelling with an ox-team instead of by rail- 
way, or upon getting news by the old stage-coach instead of by 
the lightning telegraph. Under these circumstances, who can 
wonder that so many men who plunge into business without 
talents, training, or knowledge, fail to get on % 

Among the causes of mercantile failures there are some 
which are beyond the control of the merchant, and of these 
none is more disastrous than bad and unstable legislation. It 
is notorious that in no country in the world is legislation so 
changeful and vacillating as in the United States. Felix 
Grundy used to say, somewhat irreverently, that everything 
is foreknown but the verdict of a petit jury. He might have 
said with more plausibility, " except the next acts of Con- 
gress." Scarcely have our merchants and manufacturers ad- 
justed their business to one policy respecting the tariff or the 
currency, than another policy is announced at Washington, 
and they find themselves making or selling goods at a ruinous 
loss. The conflicting views which have prevailed at different 
times regarding a National Bank, the Sub-Treasury System, 
Hard Currency, the Eeturn to Specie Payments, the Protective 
System, have led to incessant changes in legislation, and made 
it impossible for the shrewdest merchant to forecast the future. 
Each political party undoes the legislation of its predecessor, 
and the result of this perpetual tinkering of the laws is that 
hundreds of capitalists are deterred from embarking in trade, 
while thousands who venture on its fickle sea are wrecked by 
financial hurricanes against which no human prudence can 
guard. 



326 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Still another cause of failures in business, and one the impor- 
tance of which has been, perhaps, underestimated, is the robbery 
by clerks of their employers. Cases of this kind are becoming 
more and more common in this country, and unless something 
is done to arrest it, the cancer will soon have eaten into the 
very vitals of our mercantile society. How many establish- 
ments, doing a vast business, and seemingly prosperous, are 
rotten at the foundation in consequence of incessant, systematic 
peculation by clerks, it is impossible to estimate ; but in almost 
every city sudden and startling failures ever and anon occur, 
whose secret cause is known to have been this, and this only. 
Confidential clerks in banking-houses in New York, who have 
maintained for years a stainless reputation for integrity, have 
been suddenly found to have robbed their employers of thousands 
and tens of thousands of dollars. A case occurred some time ago 
in Chicago, where a young man was found to have embezzled 
from his employer for years, — stealing not only money, but 
goods, on system, converting them into cash, and making regular 
deposits of the latter in a bank. In this case the thefts were prac- 
tised with such adroitness and skill, and the whole physiognomy 
and demeanor of the thief, who was a clergyman's son, were so 
prepossessing and calculated to allay suspicion had he been 
suspected, that it is no wonder he baffled the ingenuity of his 
victim. But generally merchants and shopkeepers have them- 
selves largely to blame when they are victimized. 

Sometimes they half pay a clerk, calculating with great 
nicety the smallest pittance on which he can keep from starv- 
ing, and then wonder that, in accepting such a situation, he 
should have calculated on making up the balance of fair wages 
from the pickings of the money-drawer. Then, again, a smart, 
showy appearance, a superficial varnish of politeness and a flood 
of small talk, are too often the ready passports to posts of trust 
and honor. Who can wonder that merchants are so often 
deceived, when they look less to the inner than to the outer 
man, less to the moral character of their employees than to the 
quality of their broadcloth or the graces of their manner, and 



MERCANTILE FAILURES. 327 

never for an instant think of testing their honesty 1 The most 
desirable young men for clerks are not always the most preposses- 
sing at first. There is an urbanity, the result of good principles 
and good-breeding, which is instantly recognized by the prac- 
t7 6ed eye, and which is rarely found dissociated from good sense 
and sterling integrity. This kind of politeness is not put on and 
off like a cloak, nor is it characterized by any of the dazzling 
fripperies of demeanor which distinguish the "swells" just 
referred to. Let employers learn to distinguish between the 
real article and the counterfeit ; let them take no young man 
into their employment about whose antecedents they are not 
fully posted; let them pay fair, even liberal, salaries; and 
especially let them, so far as they can do so without establish- 
ing a system of espionage, which is always despicable, acquaint 
themselves with the conduct and pursuits of their officials out- 
side of the salesroom or counting-house, — and they will not only 
save themselves from the loss of many dollars, perhaps from 
bankruptcy, but will prevent many a young man, trembling on 
the brink of temptation, from going headlong to ruin. 

Finally, in addition to the causes of bankruptcy which we 
have mentioned might be added bad personal habits, such as 
intemperance, lack of punctuality, etc. ; the expenditure of 
capital in costly fixtures and expensive ornaments, " a device 
of rich old traders to monopolize a business by throwing obsta- 
cles in the way of men with limited capital" ; a lack of attention 
to details ; and many others upon which we have not space to 
dwell. But farther back — behind boundless credits, over- 
trading, speculation, luxurious living, and all the other causes 
which we have named or might name — is to be found the 
primary cause of mercantile failures, all these secondary ones 
being but the effect of elements lying deeper in the popular 
character. Mammon-worship, — devotion to " the almighty 
dollar," — the intense, all-devouring ambition to be the Napo- 
leon of the mart, the man who owns a greater amount of real 
estate, bank and railroad stocks, and solid cash or mortgages, 
than any other man on 'Change ; the impatience to attain to 



328 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

wealth by a few brilliant and daring strokes, instead of by 
tedious processes of labor and economy, by a few gigantic 
bounds, instead of by a slow and tedious up-hill journey ; the 
subordination of health and happiness, the highest interests of 
body and soul, to money, money, money, which is made the end 
instead of the means of existence, — this is the root from which 
spring not merely the marvellous activity, but the giant vices, 
of the American mercantile character. The race after riches 
in this country is not a healthy, bracing race, but a steeple- 
chase, a headlong, maddening rush. It is the rush of a forlorn 
hope to an " imminent deadly breach," — to a breach in the 
citadel of Mammon with its defences of thick competition, 
mounds of bankruptcy, pitfalls of speculation, and files of bad 
debts, besieged by a magazine of capital, with the large artillery 
of wholesale business and the small guns of retail. The end 
and aim of each, captains and privates, is to be the first to 
mount the breach and plant his victorious standard on the 
walls. Away with the cold dictates of virtue and prudence 
and honor ! Fling honesty to the winds. Extend no helping 
hand to your comrades sinking by your side. Think only of 
your own safety, and less of that than of the glorious end you 
have in view. Press on with all your energies, though the balls 
rain thick and fast about your ears. Stop not to stanch your 
wounds. Make a bridge, if necessary, of your dead and dying 
companions, and when you have carried the stronghold of 
Mammon, plant your flag on its topmost battlement, look 
around with a smile of triumphant satisfaction, and say, "I 'm 
a rich man ! " 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 329 



CHAPTEE XX. 

OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 

Steads not, to work on the clean jump, 

Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump. — R. W. Emerson. 

The deepest-rooted cause of American disease is that overworking of the 
brain and over-excitement of the nervous system, which are the necessary- 
consequences of their intense activity. Hence nervous dyspepsia, with con- 
sumption, insanity, and all its brood of fell disorders in its train. In a word, 
the American works himself to death. — James Stirling. 

The body has its claims, — it is a good servant ; treat it well, and it will 
do your work ; . . . . attend to its wants and requirements, listen kindly and 
patiently to its hints, occasionally forestall its necessities by a little indul- 
gence, and your consideration will be repaid with interest. But task it and 
pine it and suffocate it, make it a slave instead of a servant, it may not com- 
plain much, but, like the weary camel in the desert, it will lie down and die. 
— Charles Elam, A Physician's Problems. 

AN able London journal * has an article on the subject of 
Drudgery, in which it protests against the modern and 
absurd notion that work is an intrinsic good, or what moralists 
call an end. The modern revival of the dogma of the noble- 
ness of work it thinks was well, but it has been pushed too 
far. The worship of work for its own sake it pronounces mere 
fetichism, and almost as pernicious an extreme as the antiquat- 
ed and now comparatively unfashionable worship of idleness. 

We deeply sympathize with this protest, which was never 
more urgently needed than at this hour. Everywhere men are 
killing themselves by overwork, — by intense, exhausting labor 
of hand and brain ; and the remonstrance has come not a 
moment too soon. The life of the present day is lived at fever- 
heat. There is a fierce struggle going on in all the departments 
of labor, and the mental wear and tear is enormous. Life, in 
all of the professions, is literally a battle, and men are falling 

* The Saturday Review. 



330 GETTING ON IN THE WOELD. 

by hundreds in the thick of the fight. The desire to get rich 
in a few years, the pride of doing " an immense business," or 
of being the leader of the bar or the medical profession, leads 
thousands " to work double tides " ; and they go stumbling on, 
robbing themselves of sleep and rest and play, till they break 
down into an insane asylum or into the grave. 

Welcome, then, to the later gospel, which proclaims that 
work is not an end in itself, much less the highest earthly good. 
Far nearer the truth is the doctrine of Moses and of the most 
ancient cosmogonists, that work is a primeval curse, the result 
of sin. The curse may, indeed, like all human afflictions, be 
turned into a blessing ; but a curse, nevertheless, it is in itself, 
and only to be borne because the alternative of idleness is in- 
finitely worse. Work, when worshipped as it sometimes is by 
its servants, or when compelled by avarice, impatience, or early 
follies, too often degenerates into drudgery, and its most en- 
thusiastic eulogists will not pretend that it is then a blessing. 
There is nothing in drudgery that is fitted to produce happi- 
ness or beauty of character. On the contrary, its tendency is 
to mar all that is fair and lovely in the most cultivated natures. 

Of all the nations of the earth there is no one among whom 
this doctrine of " grind " has taken deeper root than among us 
Americans. From the days of the Puritans we have been ex- 
cessively fond of work, — work, not as a means of getting a 
living only, but in itself and for its own sake. It seems as if 
we felt the primeval curse ever weighing upon us, and so we 
continue to drudge like galley-slaves, even after we have pro- 
vided for the ever-dreaded " rainy day," and the pressure of 
bread-getting has long since passed. Hence we have so few 
holidays and seasons of rest or recreation, that, when they do 
come, we are quite perplexed to know what to do with our- 
selves. It is for phe same reason that these days are grossly 
abused by many in riotous dissipation, drunkenness, and oth- 
erwise swamping themselves with abominations ; for, as an 
old writer says, those that seldom take lawful pleasure will 
take unlawful, " and by lacing themselves too hard, grow awry 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 331 

on one side." Others, again, alternate a long spell of excessive 
labor with a comparatively short spell of excessive repose, — 
eleven months in the treadmill with one at Saratoga, — which 
is about as rational as to maintain that a man who has taken a 
bottle of brandy one day and a quart of water the next has 
been drinking brandy and water. 

When shall we learn that, as Aristotle long ago said, the end 
of labor is to gain leisure : and that hence it is possible to be 
just as immoderately and evilly addicted to work as to indul- 
gence, and that an equal amount, though a different kind of 
mischief, may accrue to one's self and family in one direction as 
in the other 1 When will the old theological idea that mortals 
are sent here as to a place of sore chastisement and mortifica- 
tion be scouted from our minds *? It is time that this everlast- 
ing drudgery should cease among us, and tliat some higher les- 
son should be impressed upon the brain of the infantile Yan- 
kee than the old saws about industry, money-getting, and the 
like. Let us abate something, at least, of our devotion to the 
almighty dollar, and regard the world as something better than 
a huge workshop, in which we are to toil and moil unceasingly, 
till death stops the human machine. Let us learn that the 
surest and best way to get on in the world is not to travel by 
" lightning lines," but " to hasten slowly." It is a libel on 
Providence to suppose that it has designed that we should live 
such a plodding, mechanical life, that we should be mere 
mill-horses, treacling evermore the same dull, unvarying round, 
and all for grist, grist, still grist, till we have become as blind 
and stupid as that most unhappy of all quadrupeds. Still 
more absurd is it to suppose that to work desperately, to be 
intensely employed, is in itself praiseworthy, even though it 
be about something which has no truth, beauty, or usefulness 
in it, and which makes no man happier or wiser. The truth is, 
that, as one of the wisest of modern essayists has remarked, to 
work insatiably requires much less mind than to work judi- 
ciously, and less courage than to refuse work that cannot be 
done honestly. " For a hundred men," says Arthur Helps, 



332 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

" whose appetite for work can be driven on by vanity, avarice, 
ambition, or a mistaken notion of advancing their families, 
there is about one who is desirous of expanding his own na- 
ture and the nature of others in all directions, of cultivating 
many pursuits, of bringing himself and those around him in 
contact with the universe in many points, — of being a man, 
and not a machine." 

" I shall die first a-top," was the mournful exclamation of 
Dean Swift, as he gazed on a noble oak whose upper branches 
had been struck by lightning ; "I shall be like that tree, I 
shall die first a-top" Afflicted for years with giddiness and 
pain in the head, he looked forward with prophetic dread to 
insanity as the probable termination of his existence ; and after 
nine years of mental and bodily suffering, the great satirist, 
the mighty polemic, the wit and the poet, died as he had 
feared and half predicted, " in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a 
hole." , 

" Dying at the top " is the disease to which a fearful number 
of Americans are to-day exposed. In the high- wrought state of 
civilization to which we have attained, hardly any complaint 
is more common than that of a brain overworked. The com- 
plaint is not uttered by literary men and scholars only, but is 
echoed by all who are striving for fame or fortune against eager 
and formidable competitors. The lawyer, the clergyman, the 
merchant, the speculator, — all are suffering from overwork ; 
from that strain of special faculties in the direction towards 
special objects, out of which comes nervous exhaustion, with 
the maladies consequent on overstimulus and prolonged fatigue. 
In every sphere of labor, the highest as well as the lowest, we 
behold on all sides men whose time and strength are completely 
absorbed by the effort to get a living for themselves and their 
families ; " mechanics whose life is one steady, unceasing grind 
in the treadmill of daily routine ; merchants who have become 
mere attaches of their counter, and clerks who are living 
appendages of their pens ; clergymen whose brains have been 
converted into a gland to secrete and discharge two sermons a 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 333 

week ; editors who have turned their wits into paragraphs until 
they are little else than walking items and talking squibs ; 
women who have sewed themselves into their garments until 
their life is but a thread." 

It is in our great cities that this evil has reached the most 
fearful pass. A person living a quiet, leisurely life in the 
country can have no adequate conception of the severe and 
exhausting labors to which hundreds subject themselves in a 
second-rate city in his neighborhood, especially in the higher 
walks of professional life; nor can the inhabitant of such a 
city, groan as he may under his toils, conceive of the more 
burdensome duties of the corresponding classes in a great com- 
mercial centre. The brain of a leading lawyer, merchant, or 
business man is forever on the stretch. By day and by night 
he can think of nothing and dream of nothing but the iron 
realities of life. Anxious, perplexing thought sits on his brow 
as he rubs his eyes at daybreak ; hurrying to the breakfast- 
table, he swallows his steak and his coffee in a twinkling, 
jumps up from his chair almost immediately, and, without 
having spoken a pleasant word, hastens away to the high courts 
of Mammon, to engage in the sharp struggle for pelf. There 
he spends hour after hour in calculating how to change his 
hundreds to thousands ; dinner and supper — which he bolts, 
never eats — come and go almost without observation ; even 
nightfall finds him still employed, with body and mind jaded, 
and eyes smarting with sleeplessness ; till at length, far in the 
night, the toil-worn laborer seeks his couch, only to think of 
the struggles and anxieties of the day, or to dream of those of 
to-morrow. Thus things go on day after day, till the poor 
bond-slave of Mammon finds his constitution shattered ; the 
doctor is summoned, and sends him to Europe; he travels 
listlessly, — he cannot leave thought behind him ; the disease 
creeps on apace ; the undertaker soon takes his dimensions in 
his mind's eye ; paralysis seizes him ; he lives a few years 
organically alive to enjoy the fruits of his labors, and then 
descends to his everlasting rest, with the glorious satisfaction, 



334 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

perhaps, of having gained, for his joyless days and sleepless 
nights, a larger " pile " than any other man on 'Change. 

It has often been remarked by foreigners that the great fault 
of our American civilization is the terrible facility with which 
we exhaust life. There is no end to our ingenuity in devising 
plans to wear it out. We eat and drink it ; we burn it with 
close stoves and furnaces ; we blow it away in loud, vociferous 
talking ; we exhaust it in business cares and anxieties ; we 
smash it on railroads and drown it in steamers ; we rack oui 
invention for new ways of cutting it short. The hot, impetu- 
ous haste with which we live is the crying evil of the times. 
Society appears to be split into two great classes, — those who 
are over-anxious in the pursuit of wealth, passing their days in 
a ceaseless paroxysm of excitement and activity, and denying 
themselves all enjoyment but that of money-getting, — and 
those thoughtless votaries of pleasure who squander their all 
upon sensual enjoyment, plunge recklessly into debt, and are 
only intent upon some new scheme of gratification or device 
to dodge the sheriff. Between these two classes the pendu- 
lum is kept always vibrating, and can never come to rest. 

Travelling by steam at thirty miles an hour is but faintly 
typical of the headlong hurry, the hot, panting haste, 
with which in this country we pursue both business and pleas- 
ure. Our very faces, furrowed with the lines of anxious 
thought, bear impress of that intensity, that terrible earnest- 
ness, which is the essence of our being. " Every American," 
says a late British traveller, " looks as if his eyes were glar- 
ing into the far "West and the far future." Determined to get 
rich in a few months or years, we cannot submit to the tedious 
process of adding one year's patient legitimate gains to those of 
another, but seek by gambling, by bold speculative combina- 
tions, by anticipation of intelligence received by railway or 
steamer, to make or mar ourselves by one bold stroke. It is 
no paradox to say that we are in such a hurry to live, that liv- 
ing, in any true sense of the term, becomes impossible. 
" Young America," especially, scorns all limits, whether in the 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 335 

quest of business or pleasure. As, when born poor, it must 
make a fortune in a day, so, if it inherits wealth, it must cir- 
cumnavigate the entire world of enjoyment in its gay pinnaces, 
with streamers flying and music playing, before it is twenty- 
five. Even sleep is got through impatiently by us, with fre- 
quent startings and consultations of the watch, lest the morn- 
ing hours be lost. We snore faster than our fathers snored, 
and we grudge the hours spent in bed as so many hours cut 
out of life. Our very diseases catch our contagious haste ; the 
lingering consumption is growing less and less frequent, — the 
instantaneous apoplexy and ossification of the heart are taking 
its place. Our fevers, it is said, are running all to a low typhoid 
type, and men are continually sinking down in the very noon- 
day of life from a mysterious lack of vital force. Such a de- 
parture from life as that described by Dryden two hundred 
years ago is now becoming more and more phenomenal : — 

" Of no distemper, of no blast he died, 
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long, 
Even wondered at because he dropped no sooner. 
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years, 
Yet freshly he ran on ten winters more, 
Till, like a clock worn out with beating time, 
The wheels oftveary life at last stood still." 

Instead of this, the toilers of to-day drop like Holmes's 
"one-hoss shay," which 

" Went to pieces all at once, 
All at once, and nothing first, — 
Just as bubbles do when they burst," 

or, if they are permitted to linger on with a kind of death-in- 
life, the result of all this excitement is, by keeping the mind 
perpetually on the rack, to sap all the foundations of health, and 
pre-date old age. Hence in the great business marts are often 
witnessed, even in persons who have barely reached the middle 
of life, the haggard, care-worn face, sunken eye, hoary hair, and 
feeble gait, which properly belong to " weird eld." Nor can 
this result be surprising to those who reflect that, as a high 



336 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

medical authority has remarked, anxiety is but a chronic kind 
of fear, a sort of intermittent fever and ague, which as mani- 
festly disorders the circulation and secretions as that which 
arises from the poisonous malaria of the marshes, — the latter 
being scarcely more deadly than that of the market in these 
days of desperate speculation and all-grasping monopoly. 

Who will say that such a life has been spent as God de- 
signed? Can there be a more pitiful failure than when the 
means of happiness thus swallow up the end 1 Were suffering 
to follow instantly upon the heels of transgression, were the 
account to be settled with Nature daily, few persons would vio- 
late her laws. Unfortunately for such fanatical devotees of 
business, she runs up long accounts with her children, and, 
like a chancery lawyer, seldom brings in " that little bill " till 
the whole subject of litigation has been eaten up. The poor 
devotee of Mammon, who thought to outwit her, finds at last 
that she is a most accurate book-keeper; that, neglecting 
nothing, she has set down everything to his credit and 
debited him with everything, that not the eighth part of a 
cent has escaped her notice ; and though the items are small, 
yet, added up, they show a frightful balance against him, and 
he finds himself, at forty or fifty, physically bankrupt, a 
broken-down, prematurely old man. 

So frequent is the spectacle of strong men breaking down 
midway in life's race, that it may be doubted whether the best 
guaranty of a long life is not a feeble constitution. The men 
of iron frames and lignum- vitse nerves, of muscles wrought of 
the heart of oak, of giant energy and herculean endurance, are 
the very men who presume upon the inexhaustibility of their 
physical capital, and soonest become bankrupt in vitality. 

This madness, this self-killing — for self-killing it is, as 
truly as if he were to cut a vein, and drain away his own life- 
blood, drop by drop — is less astonishing in the case of the 
merchant than in that of the professional man and the scholar, 
who makes the acquisition of knowledge the principal end of 
life. The latter are, or ought to be, thoroughly acquainted 



OVERWORK AKD UNDER-REST. 337 

with the laws of physiology ; and yet the facts show that they 
are either ignorant of its most elementary principles or lack 
the self-command to act upon them. ISTot long since an Eng- 
lish journal related of a leading barrister, that he acquired an 
income of fifteen thousand pounds, but was every night so com- 
pletely exhausted by his labors, that, for several hours after 
their cessation, he could not be addressed or approached with- 
out experiencing the acutest nervous distress. How many 
lawyers in our own large cities break down just as they have ac- 
quired a full mastery of the intricate science of jurisprudence, 
and when their faculties of mind and body should be in the 
highest vigor ! How many clergymen are physically insol- 
vent, mere wrecks of their former selves, at forty ! And the 
scholar, — who that is familiar with literary biography, does 
not know that half of the languages of Europe may be mas- 
tered, while the prodigy that has stuffed himself with so much 
learning knows not, or seems not to know, that by perpetual 
study, without out-door exercise, he is committing a slow 
suicide 1 

When Leyden, a Scotch enthusiast of this stamp, was warned 
by his physician of the consequences, if he continued, while 
ill with a fever and liver-complaint, to study ten hours a day, 
he coolly replied : " Whether I am to live or die, the wheel must 

go round to the last I may perish in the attempt, but if 

I die without surpassing Sir William Jones a hundred-fold in 
Oriental learning, let never a tear for me profane the eye of a 
borderer." ]No wonder that he sank into his grave in his thirty- 
sixth year, the victim of self-murder. Alexander ^N~icolly, a 
professor of Hebrew at Oxford, who, it was said, could walk 
to the wall of China without an interpreter, died a few years 
ago at the same age, chiefly from the effects of intense study ; 
and Dr. Alexander Murray, a similar prodigy, died at thirty- 
eight of the same cause. Sir Humphry Davy, in the height 
of his fame, nearly killed himself by the excessive eagerness 
with which he prosecuted his inquiries into the alkaline metals, 
pursuing his labors in the night till three or four o'clock, and 
15 v 



338 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

even then often rising before the servants of the laboratory. 
Excessive application threw Boerhave into a delirium for six 
weeks ; it gave a shock to the powerful frame of Newton ; it 
cut short the days of Sir Walter Scott, and it laid in the grave 
the celebrated Weber, whose mournful exclamation, amid his 
multiplied engagements, is familiar to many an admirer of his 
weird-like music : " Would that I were a tailor, for then I 
should have a Sunday's holiday." It was the same cause which 
struck down Sir William Hamilton in his fifty-sixth year with 
paralysis, and ended the life of the most brilliant and influen- 
tial of American journalists, Mr. Raymond, in a cerebral crash 
at the early age of forty-nine. The effects of such toil in this 
country are far more disastrous than in Europe, for, owing to 
climate and other agencies, work of every kind is more exhaust- 
ing here than there. 

It is related of Sir Philip Sidney, that, when at Frankfort, 
he was advised by the celebrated printer, Languet, not to 
neglect his health during his studies, " lest he should resemble 
a traveller who, during a long journey, attends to himself but 
not to his horse." When will professional men, business men, 
and scholars act upon this homely but sensible advice 1 What 
can be more crazy than the conduct of a traveller who, having 
a journey of five hundred miles to perform, which he can 
rightly perform only at the rate of fifty miles a day, lashes his 
horse into a speed of a hundred, at the risk of breaking him 
down in mid-journey 1 We are aware of the excuses given for 
this insanity. We know very well that the poor bond-slave 
of business pretends that he must overdraw his bank account 
with nature, — though every draft will have ultimately to be 
repaid with compound interest, — in order to maintain his 
position in society or on 'Change, and that the intellectual 
slave, besides this reason, will plead the deep enjoyment he 
finds in unceasing work or study. But it is simply absurd for 
any man to state that he is compelled to maintain a particular 
status in society, that he must move in this or that circle, 
that he must challenge this or that degree of respect from those 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 339 

around him. The argument is just that by which the Swart- 
wouts, the Schuylers, and the whole race of swindlers, embez- 
zlers, and defaulters, have defended and excused their crimes. 
There is nothing but a wretched vanity underlying all these 
pretences; and he who, to gratify so low a passion, deliber- 
ately overtasks his bodily and mental energies year after year 
from January to December, need not be astonished if, like 
Swift, he suddenly find himself " dying a-top," or if the ver- 
dict of the public, the coroner's jury at large, should be, 
after the release of his weary spirit from the more weary body, 
Died by his own hand. 

There is occasionally a business man who candidly admits 
that this intense and unremitting devotion to affairs, without 
rest or relaxation, is but a species of slavery ; but he will tell 
you that it is but temporary, that he endures it for the 
present in the hope of earning a competency which will enable 
him at some day to purchase an exemption from these drudg- 
eries. The grinding toil, the harassing cares, the exhausting 
brain-work, the tedious, ever-dreary monotony of the present, 
he cheerfully submits to, in consideration of a future which 
will make up for it all in one long play day, — in an indefinite 
period of repose, elegant leisure, and luxurious enjoyment. 

But who needs to be told how uniformly such expectations 
are doomed to disappointment ] Life slips through the fingers 
of such persons unfelt, unenjoyed, in the bustle and hurry- 
scurry of preparing to live. In nineteen cases out of twenty 
the competency, for the attainment of which such sacrifices are 
made, is never realized ; and even the envied few who are suc- 
cessful find the period of leisure, when it comes, to be one of 
even more misery than enjoyment. Nature, as we have already 
said, cannot be outraged with impunity. Though a generous 
giver, she is a hard bargainer ; and invariably, in the long run, 
the man who works double tides, who crowds the work of 
forty years into twenty, and burns his candle at both ends, 
will find that he will accomplish less by attempting to over- 
match or cheat Nature, than by accepting her own terms. 



340 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

The mind is monarch of the body ; but, if it ever so far forgets 
itself as to trample npon its slave, the slave will not be gener- 
ous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite its 
oppressor. In all likelihood, the man who toils and moils at 
business, without relaxation or enjoyment, through the best 
years of life, with the hope of retiring at last and making the 
evening of life all holiday, all play, will never retire, except 
into an untimely grave. But grant that he is what the world 
calls " successful," that by ceaseless toil and self-denial he gains 
the high table-land which a fixed position, competency, and 
settled relations in life may be said to form, — who does not 
know what almost invariably follows, when the stimulus which 
has thus far goaded him up the steeps of business has lost its 
power? Ennui, world-weariness, sadness of soul and counte- 
nance, doubts " if the play be worth the candle," impatience 
and restlessness, — in short, all those ailments, partly mental 
and partly physical, which the French sum up in the expressive 
phrase, maladie du quarante ans, seize upon him, and body 
and mind, deprived of their wonted occupation, break down. 
The history of society is full of examples of retired citizens 
vainly seeking, in frivolous amusements and hobbies, the 
means of agreeably whiling away their time, until, at length, 
unable any longer to endure a vacuity for which they are 
unprepared, they find it necessary to return to their former 
business, if not intercepted by a death of sheer ennui and 
disgust. 

Nor is there anything strange in such a result. After in- 
tense and prolonged labor, rest is delightful ; but after the 
feeling of exhaustion is gone, nothing is more irksome than 
enforced idleness. Who does not remember Charles Lamb's 
letter to Wordsworth, in which the prisoner of the India-House 
paints so vividly his misery on being released from his drudgery 1 
" I wandered about, thinking I was happy, and feeling I was 
not. Holidays, even the annual month, were always uneasy 
joys, with their conscious fugitiveness, the craving after mak- 
ing the most of them. Now, when all is holiday, there are no 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 341 

holidays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, without a restless 
impulse for walkings." No one who understands the force of 
habit would, for a moment, expect that, after having spent 
twenty or thirty years of his life in a round of ceaseless activ- 
ity, a man could break off without giving his physical system 
a shock j nor is it more surprising that, after having, in his 
exclusive devotion to business, neglected entirely the cultivation 
of his mental faculties, and thus having no inward resources to 
fall back upon, he should fall a prey to ennui and melancholy, 
and end his days, like the Hebrew sage, in declaring all to be 
vanity and vexation of spirit. 

But, it will be urged by another class of workers, fearful as 
it is to see "the fiery soul o'er-informing its integument of 
clay," the sword wearing out the scabbard, yet it is better, 
surely, to wear out than to rust out ; better to drudge at the 
grimiest toil than to swing in the hammock of laziness and 
doze life away; better, far better, that the ship should be 
shivered upon the rocks, or go down beneath the waters, than 
rot ingloriously at the wharves ! The value of a life depends 
upon the amount and value of the work done, not upon the 
number of days to which it is prolonged. Did not Goethe 
deem Schiller happy in that he died in the full vigor of his 
days 1 Is there not, as one has said, a vast difference between 
a half-life and half a life, considering that one may trickle 
through a hundred years, the other may be concentrated by 
force of great occasion within the limits of an hour 1 Do not 
some men have 

" The life of a long life 
Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear 
Upon the world's cold cheek, to make it burn 
Forever," 

and die hoary at twenty, or, like Pope, become " sexagenarian 
at sixteen " 1 

There is much force in these suggestions, though it may be 
replied that these earnest and terrible workers, who have com- 
pressed the work of threescore and ten years in a half-dozen or 



342 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

a dozen, might have done more for themselves and for man- 
kind, had they rested oftener and given more time to social en- 
joyment. That work is more likely to be well done which is 
done with the judgment, wisdom, and poise — above all with 
the reserved power — which age gives. Who can estimate the 
loss to the world occasioned by the early death of Mr. Buckle 1 
Of what priceless value would ten or twenty years more of life 
have been to such a scholar and thinker ! Generations may 
elapse before another literary laborer of industry so tireless, and 
so colossal a capacity for generalizing colossal acquirements, 
shall appear to complete the noble fragment he has left us. 

It is doubtless true, also, that there are men of intellectual 
tastes so constituted that with them overwork is a necessary 
choice of evils. The man whose friends deplore that he is 
killing himself, often bears that within him which would more 
ignobly kill him, if he did not throw himself impetuously into 
the intellectual struggle, and thus withdraw his thoughts, for 
a time at least, from the " Bluebeard chambers of the heart." 
How often do men throw themselves into the whirlpool of in- 
tellectual excitement, as a relief from deep mental anguish ! 
Burton, a hypochondriac, wrote the " Anatomy of Melancholy," 
that marvel of learning, and protracted his life to the age of 
sixty-four. Without mental labor, sometimes of a severe and 
almost compulsory character, it may be doubted whether Cow- 
per, constitutionally so gloomy-minded, would have reached 
the verge of seventy. Besides, there is often an enchantment, 
a witchery and fascination, in literary labor, which renders 
cessation therefrom more distressing, perhaps, than even the 
results of overwork. 

"I must write to empty my mind," said Byron, "or go 
mad." When Sir Walter Scott was warned by his medical 
advisers, after his first attack of apoplexy, that if he persisted 
in working his brain his malady must inevitably recur with 
redoubled severity, he replied : "As for bidding me not work, 
Molly might as well put the kettle on the fire, and say, ' Now 
don't boiV .... I foresee distinctly that if I were to be idle 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 343 

I should go mad." Go mad he did, from excessive labor \ but 
not till after many a warning and presentiment of the attack 
of which he died. Years before his death the reluctant convic- 
tion forced itself on the mind of his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, 
that the mighty magician of the pen was losing something of 
his energy. Though the faculties were there, and occasionally 
blazed forth with their old meridian splendor, yet his sagacious 
judgment and matchless memory were frequently at fault : — 

"Among the chords the fingers strayed, 
And an uncertain warbling made." 

Ever and anon he paused and looked around him, like one half 
waking from a dream mocked with shadows. The sad bewil- 
derment of his gaze showed a momentary consciousness that, 
like Samson in the lap of the Philistine, " his strength was 
passing from him, and he was becoming weak, like unto other 
men." Then came the strong effort of aroused will. The 
clouds dispersed as if before a resistless current of pure air ; all 
was bright and serene as of old; and then the sky was 
shrouded again in yet deeper darkness, till at last the night 
of death closed the scene. It is said that Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
whose intellectual as well as his moral structure was grand and 
powerful, passed all his days in the dread of a similar intellec- 
tual eclipse. 

How many literary laborers in our own country, — how 
many merchants and business men generally, — are hurrying 
on to a similar goal ! What shall they do to counteract the 
fearful effects of brain-weariness *? Shall they be counselled for 
the thousandth time to take exercise, — to take long walks 
and breathe fresh air 1 Unfortunately, exercise, taken con- 
sciously and for its own sake, with no ulterior aim, does no 
good. The mere act of walking till the nerves have registered 
a certain amount of muscular fatigue, above all, a dull mel- 
ancholy walk without company, degenerates into a task, and 
gives no relief to the mind. A man might as well train him- 
self for a game of base-ball or a cricket-match by a night's 
hard study, as try to recruit his overtasked mind by a five-mile 



344 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

stretch on the public road. Besides, all such attempts at phys- 
ical improvement, however heroically kept up for a few days 
or weeks, are sure of a speedy end. Shall the sufferer try the 
gymnasium ? That, too, has been tested thoroughly, and even 
the most enthusiastic of its early glorifiers are now ready to 
admit that it has been found wanting. Gymnastics may do 
for boys whose frames have not been hardened, but are utterly 
unfit for grown persons, especially for hard thinkers. The 
hurtfulness, the exhaustion, which such recreations produce, is 
absolutely incompatible with much brain-work. Every man 
has a certain fixed amount, or capital stock, of strength ; and 
few have so much that it will admit of being taken out at both 
ends, head and heels, at once. The total neglect of exercise is 
hardly more deleterious than too much rushed through per- 
functorily. It is simply absurd to think that violent exertions 
for a couple of hours can atone for the want of a constant sup- 
ply of fresh air ; and still more to think that we can save our 
candle by burning it at both ends instead of at one only. 
Nature is not thus to be outwitted. The proper remedy for a 
period of unhealthy living is not working double tides, not 
an hour or two occupied in drawing off the remaining strength 
of an overtaxed system, but, as a sensible writer has observed, 
now and then an entire day or week or month given to reno- 
vation and merely physical improvement. In the intervals, 
such exercise as is taken ought to be of an easy and amusing 
rather than of a laborious kind. Such a change as society af- 
fords is of more value than muscular activity. But vaca- 
tions, frequent holidays, though but for a day, are the true 
safety-valves of professional men ; and he who grants him- 
self occasional rest will not only live longer, but do more work, 
than he who drudges in the office, counting-room, or study 
from January to December. 

Again, one of the worst results of overworking the brain 
in any exclusive direction is, that it tends, when it does not ab- 
solutely break down that organ, to produce mental deformity. 
As the nursery-maid who carries her burden with one hand 



OVERWORK AND UNDER-REST. 345 

exclusively is afflicted with spinal curvature, so the thinking 
man who gives his intellectual energies to one subject or class 
of subjects gets a twist in his brains. Those persons, there- 
fore, who are chained to mental labor and cannot give the 
brain repose, should try to vary their labors, which is another 
form of repose. " Intense and prolonged application to one 
subject," says a writer, "is the root of all the mischief. As 
your body may be in activity during the whole of the day, if 
you vary the actions sufficiently, so may the brain work all day 
at varied occupations. Hold out a stick at arm's length for five 
minutes, and the muscles will be more fatigued than by an 
hour's rowing : the same principle holds good with the brain." 
There is truth in this ; yet it must be remembered that even 
where mental labor is thus varied, there is a limit beyond 
which the brain cannot be safely tasked. Lands need to lie 
fallow, and so do brains. You may rest oftentimes by simply 
changing your work, as the boy at the grindstone rests by chan- 
ging hands ; but the man who gets all his head-rest that way 
will suffer as truly as the boy who, with either hand, attempts 
an unceasing grind. To reconcile health with perpetual work, 
however ingeniously varied, demands, not a human constitu- 
tion, not even that of a Hercules, but one of Hgnumvitae or 



346 GETTING ON IN THE WQKLD. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

TRUE AND FALSE SUCCESS. 

We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those 
parts. Our simple duty is confined to playing them well. — Epictetus. 

I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for 
men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used. — G. S. 
Hillard. 

To know 
That which before us lies in daily life 
Is the prime wisdom. — Milton. 

The heart of a man is a short word, a small substance, scarce enough to 
give a kite a meal ; yet great in capacity, yea, so indefinite in desire that 
the round globe of the world cannot fill the three corners of it ! When it 
desires more, and cries, " Give, give ! " I will set it over to the infinite 
good, where the more it hath it may desire more, and see more to be desired. 
— Bishop Hall. 

0, keep me innocent ! make others great. — Queen Caroline Matilda, 
of Denmark. 

The world will be blind, indeed, if it does not reckon amongst its great ones 
such martyrs as miss the palm but not the pains of martyrdom, heroes with- 
out the laurels, and conquerors without the jubilation of triumph. — J. H. 
Friswell, The Gentle Life. 

IN the preceding chapters we have endeavored to furnish 
the beginner in life with some useful directions touching 
the art of " getting on in the world," illustrating our hints by 
examples of men who have succeeded and of men who have 
failed. In conclusion, it should be remembered that success in 
life is to be regarded as a means, and not as an end ; and that 
therefore there is such a thing possible as unsuccessful success, — 
such a thing as gaining every end, while the whole life has 
been a failure. For what is this success, to which we have 
been trying to point out the path 1 ? Viewed in the light of 
another world, — of that measureless existence compared with 
which this earthly one is but a point, — what is it, after all, 



TRUE AND FALSE SUCCESS. 347 

but a comparatively vulgar, paltry affair 1 Is it anything for 
which a man should crawl in the dust, degrade himself in his 
own estimation, do violence to the divine principle within him, 
or stoop to the smallest mean or dishonorable action 1 Is life 
a scrub-race, where, at every hazard, though you have to blind 
the man on your right and trip the one on your left, you must 
struggle to come out ahead % Shall we subscribe to that 
dangerous materialism running throughout American life, which 
preaches that money is the great end and evidence of the 
possession of intellect, that a man must be a failure unless 
he culminates in the possession of a check-book, — a belief 
worthy only of a people prepared to accept " Poor Bichard's " 
maxims as a New Testament 1 Were we sent into the world 
simply, in the slang phrase of the day, " to win a pile " 1 And 
when we have a competence, shall we sacrifice health, peace, 
conscience, that we may boast of our hundreds of thousands, 
though we know that incessant fear and nervous anxiety are 
often the shadows that surround the glittering heap 1 ? Is it 
nothing to have a conscience void of offence, a face that never 
turns pale at the accuser's voice, a bosom that never throbs at 
the fear of exposure, a heart that might be turned inside out 
and discover no stain of dishonor ? 

But perhaps you regard popularity as the great test of suc- 
cess ; you covet the digito pretereuntium monstrari ; you would 
be the focus of all eyes, " the observed of all observers," though 
of that kind of honor, as Cowley says, "every mountebank 
has more than the best doctor, and the hangman more than 
the lord chief justice of a city." Then you live a life only 
in others' breath; your happiness depends on every turn of 
the weathercock ; you are at the mercy of every wind that 
blows. Are you the lion of to-day, because you have burned 
the heart of the world with your ardent soul 1 I am the lion 
to-morrow, because I balance myself on a wire over the dizzy 
chasm of Niagara, and you are quite forgotten. The con- 
founding of excellence with pecuniary success or a seat in 
Congress is both absurd and immoral. Was the divinest life 



348 GETTING ON IN THE WOULD. 

ever led on this earth a success, humanly speaking 1 And are 
you entitled to pronounce your fellow-man, who has humbly 
tried to copy it, a cipher, because he has not, like you, courted 
applause, and made some little nook or corner of the earth 
ring with his name ? Has not many a man been a blessing to 
the world who has made no noise in it, and who has died 
a beggar ? And have not thousands died rich in goods or repu- 
tation, who were intellectually and morally bankrupt] Is 
it not too true of the road of ambition, that, as another has 
said, " the higher it ascends the more difficult it becomes, till 
at last it terminates in some elevation too narrow for friend- 
ship, too steep for safety, too sharp for repose, and where the 
occupant, above the sympathy of man and below the friend- 
ship of angels, resembles in the solitude if not the depth of 
his sufferings a Prometheus chained to the Caucasian rock " ? 
Whatever you will pay the price for, you can have in this 
world, — that is the rule. Be rich or popular, if you choose, • — 
bringing all your faculties, as did Bonaparte his forces, to bear 
upon one point, and letting your intellectual and moral nature 
lie fallow. But do not arrogate too much on the strength of this 
vulgar success ; do not expect admiration and applause, or even 
a tacit assent to your claims, from those who are accustomed to 
look below the surface. Do not deem yourself authorized to 
pity those who prefer incorruptible treasures to a balance at 
their banker's, — the " pearl of great price " to the jewel that 
sparkles on the finger, — and who have been successful as men, 
though they may have failed as lawyers, doctors, and merchants. 
The possession of 5-20 bonds, and mortgages, and corner lots 
does not always and necessarily reward virtuous industry ; "a 
play, a book, a great work, an architect, or a general, may owe 
success simply to the bad taste of the times ; and, again, non- 
success in any candidate may arise from a conscience too clear 
and sensitive, a taste too good and too nice, a judgment too 
discriminative, a generosity too romantic and noble, or a mod- 
esty too retiring." There is no possible valuation of human 
character which would make the slightest show in the stock- 



TRUE AND FALSE SUCCESS. 349 

list ; and hence success, truly understood, must be sought, not 
in what we have, but in what we are. 

All experience shows that the greatest and most continued 
favors of fortune cannot, of themselves, make a man happy, 
nor can the deprivation of them render altogether miserable 
the possessor of a clear conscience and a well-regulated mind. 
Goethe, who seems to have been born to show how little 
genius, health, honor, influence, and worldly goods can do to 
make a man happy, confessed that he had not, in the course 
of his life, enjoyed five weeks of genuine pleasure; and a 
famous caliph, looking back over a brilliant reign of fifty 
years, found that he had enjoyed only fourteen days of pure 
and unalloyed happiness. An ingenious Frenchman has even 
written an able book to prove that no change in any man's 
external circumstances, bating the case of absolute indigence, 
can alter a man's essential feelings of comfort and happiness 
for more than three months. Such cynicism, which, if univer- 
sal, would put a sudden stop to all the wheels of the world's 
industry, can have but few converts ; men will still continue, 
in spite of all the croakings of moralists, to crave and toil and 
struggle for the world's prizes ; and it must be confessed that, 
in spite of all drawbacks, success, even in this vulgar sense, is 
a desirable thing. Money, and a pleasant home, and freedom 
from economical cares, books and pictures, travel in foreign 
lands, the society of cultivated and elegant men and women, 
the respect of the world, and the best viands, are all solid 
advantages, which none covet more than those who affect to 
despise them. Life is certainly a journey and a pilgrimage, 
but "if it were only a journey of a single night, travelling 
first-class would be incomparably more comfortable than travel- 
ling third." It is therefore a great saying that "heaven is 
probably a place for those who have failed on earth," — for the 

" Delicate spirits, pushed away 
In the hot press of the noonday." 

Do you ask, then, what you shall aim at in life 1 "We an- 
swer, as we began : Aim to act well your part, for therein lies 



350 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

all the honor. Every man has a mission to perform in this 
world, for which his talents precisely fit him, and, having 
found what this mission is, he must throw into it all the ener- 
gies of his soul, seeking its accomplishment, not his own glory. 
As Goethe wisely says : " Man is not born to solve the prob- 
lem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do, and to 
restrain himself within the limits of his power of comprehen- 
sion." Having found out what you have to do, — whether to 
lead an army or to sweep a crossing, to keep a hotel or to 
drive a hack, to harangue senates or address juries or pre- 
scribe medicines, — do it with all your might, because it is 
your duty, your enjoyment, or the very necessity of your 
being. 

Are your intellectual endowments small, and do you despond 
because your progress must be slow 1 Remember that, if you 
have but one talent, you are responsible only for its wise em- 
ployment. If you cannot do all you wish, you can at least do 
your best ; and, as Dr. Arnold says, if there be one thing on 
earth which is truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom bless- 
ing an inferiority of natural powers, when they have been honest- 
ly, truly, and zealously cultivated. Remembering that the bat- 
tle of life cannot be fought by proxy, be your own helper, be 
earnest, be watchful, be diligent, and, if you do not win suc- 
cess, you will have done the next best thing, — you will have 
deserved it. 

Is your calling one which the world calls mean or humble ] 
Strive to ennoble it by mixing brains with it, as Opie did with 
his colors. Show by the spirit that you carry into it, that to 
one who has self-respect, an exalted soul, the most despised 
profession may be made honorable ; that, as we have already 
said, it is the heart, the inspiring motive, not the calling, that 
degrades ; that the mechanic may be as high-minded as the 
poet, the day-laborer as noble as the artist. It is related of the 
celebrated Boston merchant, William Gray, that having, on a 
certain occasion, censured a mechanic for some slovenly work, 
the latter, who had known Mr. Gray when he was in a very 



TRUE AND FALSE SUCCESS. 351 

humble position, bore the rebuke with impatience : " I tell you 
what, Billy Gray, I sha' n't stand such words from you. Why, 
I recollect you when you were nothing but a drummer in a 
regiment ! " " And so I was," replied Mr. Gray, " so I was a 
drummer; but did n't I drum well, eh] — did n't I drum 
well ? " In the words, then, of Schiller : — 

" What shall I do lest life in silence pass ? " 

And if it do, 
And never prompt the bray of noisy brass, 

What need'st thou rue ? 
Remember aye the ocean deeps are mute ; 

The shallows roar ; 
Worth is the ocean, — Fame is the bruit 

Along the shore. 

" What shall I do to be forever known ? " 

Thy duty ever ! 
" This did full many who yet sleep unknown," — 
Oh ! never, never ! 
Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown 

Whom thou know'st not ? 
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, 
Divine their lot. 

"What shall I do to gain eternal life ? 

Discharge aright 
The simple dues with which each day is rife ? " 

Yea, with thy might. 
Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise, 

Will life be fled, 
While he who ever acts as conscience cries 

Shall live, though dead. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Ability generally finds recognition, 
17, 50. 

Accuracy, 168, 169. 

Adam, Dr. Alexander, teacher, 213. 

Adams, John, 46. 

Adams, John Quincy, his punctuality, 
173 ; his economy of time, 274. 

Addison, his failure as Secretary of 
State, 122 ; his painstaking, 227, 232. 

Adrian VI., Pope, 92. 

Advantages, 202. 

Adversity a blessing, 201 - 204. 

iEschylus, 61. 

A.gassiz, naturalist, 200 ; on money- 
making, 287. 

Ainsworth, Robert, his destroyed MSS. , 
224. 

Alexander, Dr. J. W., on sermons, 74 ; 
on faith, 53 ; on bits of knowledge, 
277, 278. 

Alexandre, glove-maker, 98. 

Allen, Andrew Jackson, 106. 

Americans,too often jacks-at-all-trades, 
70 ; an imitative people, 100, 101 ; 
their impatience, 258 ; their haste 
to be rich, 308 ; their lack of indi- 
viduality, 95 ; their fast living, 334, 
335. 

Angelo, Michael, 42 ; his love for his 
art, 67 ; his application, 226, 234 ; 
his proposal to fortify Florence, 248. 

Application, 164 - 166. 

Archimedes, 93, 278. 

Argyle, Duke of, his elocution, 148. 

Arkwright, Eichard, inventor, 92. 

Aristotle, his attention to bodiculture, 
57. 

Arnault on rest, 274. 



Arnold, Dr. Thomas, of Rugby, his 
politeness, 157 ; on energy, 191 ; on 
inferior abilities, 350. 

Assurance, 180-185, 187. 

Astor, John Jacob, 290. 

Asylums, often an evil, 89, 90. 

Audubon, his destroyed drawings, 
225. 

Aurelius, Marcus, 274. 

B. 

Bach, John Sebastian, 40. 

Bacon, Lord, 44 ; on books, 119 ; his 
moral weakness, 122 ; his note- 
books, 227 ; contrasted with Macau- 
lay, 245 ; on riches, 288. 

Balzac, 214. 

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, 58 ; his studious- 
ness, 229 ; his mental grasp, 246. 

Beecher, Henry "Ward, on mental 
power, 54 ; on manner, 144 ; his In- 
diana pastorate, 216 ; his drill in 
elocution, 236. 

Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 236. 

Bembo, Cardinal, 231. 

Bentham, Jeremy, on happiness, 114 ; 
on habit, 160. 

Beethoven, on Rossini, 89 ; his igno- 
rance of finance, 123 ; his poverty, 
123. 

Bellamy, Dr., on sermons, 259. 

Bentley, Dr. Richard, 68 ; his Phala- 
ris controversy, 250-252. 

Beranger, 231. 

Blair, Dr. Hugh, his advice to Bos- 
well, 81. 

Blucher, Marshal, his decision, 139 ; 
his will, 199 ; his defeat at Ligny, 
248. 



356 



INDEX. 



Boerhave, 338. 

Boileau, his failure as a lyrist, 68. 

Bolingbroke, Lord, 118. 

Bonner (of the N. Y. Ledger), 98. 

Boswell, James, 81. 

Boyle, Hon. Charles, 250. 

Braham, vocalist, 77. 

Brandreth, Dr., 98. 

Briggs, Gov., of Mass., on failures, 

305. 
Brindley, engineer, 118. 
Brooks, James, 216-218. 
Brooks, Peter C, 311. 
Brougham, Lord, his physical vigor, 

61, 62 ; his universality, 79 ; on Na- 
poleon's attention to details, 112 ; 

his perseverance, 196. 
Brown, Dr. John, on presence of mind, 

135. 
Browne, Sir Thomas, on the world's 

rulers, 119. 
Brummell, Beau, 21, 22, 44. 
Brunelleschi, architect, his attention 

to details, 110, 111. 
Brydges, Sir Egerton, 244. 
Buckle, Henry Thomas, 342. 
Buffon, on invention, 31 ; on genius, 

166 ; on style, 232. 
Bulwer, Sir Henry L., on Mackintosh, 

138. 
Burke, Edmund, his masterpiece, 11 ; 

his early struggles, 86 ; his labo- 

riousness, 229 ; his " Letter to a 

Noble Lord," 232. 
Burnett, Bishop, 229. 
Burns, Kobert, his boyhood, 41 ; his 

bodily vigor, 60 ; his politeness, 157 ; 

on gathering gear, 294. 
Burr, Aaron, his manners, 148 ; his 

will, 219. 
Burritt, Elihu, 273. 
Burton, Eobert, 35, 342. 
Business, a means of mental training, 

163, 164 ; changes of, 313. 
Business habits, 159- 177. 
Business men not machines, 163. 
Butler, Bishop, 78. 
Butler, Cyrus, merchant, 153. 
Butler, Samuel, his commonplace-book, 

226 ; his imitators, 102. 



Buxton, Sir Fowell, his advice to be, 
ginners, 91 ; on will, 191. 

Byron, Lord, his imitators, 105, 106 ; 
his irritability, 194 ; his first poem, 
198 ; his motive for writing, 342. 



Cady, Daniel, his attention to details, 
109. 

Caesar, Julius, on luck, 25 ; describe^ 
by De Quincey, 32 ; his power of 
will, 190 ; 

Calhoun, John C, 44 ; his faith in 
himself, 94 ; his power of attention, 
165. 

Callings, all equally honorable, 8. 

Campbell, Sir Colin, his decision, 139. 

Campbell, Lord, 211. 

Canning, George, his imprudence, 72, 
73 ; as a gentleman, 152. 

Camden, Lord, 210. 

Cano, Alonzo, sculptor, 233. 

Capitalists are public stewards, 288 
290. 

Carlyle, Thomas, on poverty and toil, 
86 ; his lack of courtesy, 157 ; on 
work, 223 ; his destroyed MSS., 224. 

Carnot, statesman, 44. 

Caylus, Count, 36. 

Cecil on method, 166. 

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, his politeness, 
157. 

Chambers, William and Robert, 98. 

Chantrey, sculptor, 44. 

Charity, 84, 85. 

Charlemagne, 119. 

Charles V., Emperor, his indecision, 
136 ; on Philip II., 139. 

Chatham, Lord, his manner, 148 ; on 
impossibilities, 200 ; his painstak- 
ing, 226 ; his magnetism and will, 
245. 

Chatterton, Thomas, 43. 

Chaucer, 61. 

Cheerfulness, 222, 223. 

Chesterfield, Lord, on choice of a call- 
ing, 42 ; his son, 42 ; on manner, 
142, 152, 153 ; on the Duke of Argyle, 
148 ; his elocution, 149 ; on genius, 
166 ; hi? translations, 226. 



INDEX. 



357 



Choate, Rufus, his power of concen- 
tration, 73, 74 ; his advice to advo- 
cates, 74 ; his legal conflicts, 218 ; 
his waste of strength, 265. 

Chitty, barrister, on qualifications for 
the bar, 208. 

Cicero, on luck, 25 ; his attention to 
physical culture, 56 ; his versatility, 
68, 229. 

Circumstances, as a cause of failure, 
20, 32, 93 ; the power of, 24 ; often 
controllable, 27, 31 ; the stepping- 
stones to success, 28, 92, 93. 

Civility defined, 156, 157 ; where found, 
156, 157 ; implies self-sacrifice, 158 ; 
how acquired, 158 ; a fortune of it- 
self, 142 ; a real ornament, 150. 

Clark, Dr. Adam, 58, 212 ; on " too 
many irons," 79. 

Clarkson, Thomas, 41, 92. 

Clay, Henry, his practice in oratory, 
235. 

Clergymen, their need of broad culture, 
260 ; should economize their strength, 
264. 

Clerks, 326. 

Clough, Arthur, 93. 

Cobden, Richard, 92, 196. 

Coleridge, S. T. , his lack of concentra- 
tion, 79, 80 ; his indecision, 133 ; on 
method, 166 ; discovery of the "Ara- 
bian Nights," 279. 

Colfax, Vice-President, 263. 

Coligni, Admiral, his pluck, 32 ; his 
indecision, 136. 

Collingwood, Lord, on whiling away 
time, 276. 

Colton, C. C, on ennui, 36. 

Commerce, its present characteristics, 
322-325. 

Competition, 4, 17, 18. 

Concentration, 65-82, 222, 261 ; econ- 
omizes strength, 74 ; does not imply 
isolation, 74, 78 ; nor exclusive at- 
tention to one thing, 75. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 104. 

Cooper, Sir Astley, 212. 

Copernicus, 92. 

Corneille, 68, 122. 

Correggio, 48. 



Courier, Paul Louis, anecdote by, 182. 

Courtesy, 150. 

Cowley, on boyish fancies, 279 ; on 
notoriety, 347. 

Cowper, William, 342 ; his shyness, 
122. 

Credit, abuses of, 315-318. 

Crichton, the Admirable, 69, 78. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 25, 119, 162. 

Culture, its effects when excessive, 
116-120; new methods of, 242, 243. 

Cumberland, Richard, quotation from, 
22. 

Curran, J. P., his first speech, 249. 

Custom, its tyranny, 95. 

Cuvier, on genius, 166 ; his improve- 
ment of time, 273. 



DAguesseau, on Fenelon, 148. 

DAlembert, on Euler, 193. 

Dante, 68, 122. 

Darwin, Dr., author, 273. 

David, painter, 47. 

Davy, Sir Humphry, 44 ; his intense 
labor, 337. 

Dearborn, Gen. A. H. S., on failures 
in business, 305. 

Debt, increases with riches, 291 ; its 
miseries, 300-303. 

Decision, 127-140; John Foster on, 
127 ; cannot be created, 128 ; Syd- 
ney Smith on, 125 ; necessary in 
battle, 130 ; a characteristic of Na- 
poleon, 130 ; of Wellington, 132 ; 
striking example of, 132, 133 ; in 
crises, 134 ; needed by lawyers and 
physicians, 134, 135 ; lacked by liter- 
ary men, 137 ; lacked by Charles 
V. and Coligni, 136 ; and by Mack- 
intosh, 137, 138 ; a characteristic of 
Ledyard, Sir C. Campbell, Blucher, 
and Sir T. Picton, 139 ; exemplified 
by Tacon, 140. 

Degeneracy, modern, 90. 

De Maistre, Count Joseph, on battles, 
199 ; his commonplace-books, 199. 

Demosthenes, 41 ; on oratory, 148. 

De Quincey, Thomas, 80, 180. 



358 



INDEX. 



Despatch, 174. 

Dessaix, Marshal, 199. 

De Stael, Madame, 43. 

Details, attention to, 107 - 114 ; in 
trade, 107 ; in other callings, 108 ; 
in literature and art, 108, 109 ; in 
war, 110 ; Napoleon's care for, 111 ; 
Wellington's attention to, 113. 

Dewey, Dr. Orville, on genius, 229. 

Dexter, " Lord Timothy," 22, 33. 

Dickens, Charles, his rules of work, 
67 ; his painstaking, 230 ; on atten- 
tion, 230. 

Difficulty, its uses, 85. 

Discouragements of beginners, 17, 23, 
25. 

Discretion, 16. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 118, 195, 249. 

Distraction of pursuit, 79. 

" Dr. Easy " and " Dr. Push," 183. 

Drew, Samuel, 213. 

Drudgery, 329 - 331. 

Dryden, saying of, 18 ; his precocity, 
42 ; on men of genius, 43 ; his fail- 
ure in tragedy, 68 ; quotation from, 
335. 



E. 



Easy writing, 255, 256. 

Economy, of strength, 261 - 266 ; of 
time, 268 - 279 ; of money, 295 - 298 ; 
as a habit, 297 ; the secret of England's 
greatness, 299 ; of nature, 299, 300. 

Edinburgh Review, on success at the 
bar, 22. 

Eldon, Lord, 86 ; his early struggles, 
209 ; his advice to a young man, 
210 ; his study of Coke, 227. 

Ellenborough, Lord, his early strug- 
gles, 211. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on concentra- 
tion, 66, 69, 70 ; on the "silent Gre- 
cians" of England, 117 ; not an 
imitator, 104 ; on literary imitation, 
106 ; on tact, 121 ; on manner, 146 ; 
on preparatory training, 236 ; on 
success, 200 ; on special talents, 307. 

England, and the Russian War, 32 ; 
secret of her supremacy, 59 ; not 



likely to decline, 59 ; her sailors, 59 ; 
not a country for average men, 70. 

Englishmen, their fondness for exer- 
cise, 58. 

Enterprise, 99, 322 - 325. 

Enthusiasm, 200. 

Erskine, Lord, on success at the bar, 
22 ; his first brief, 29 ; his early life, 
198 ; his extracts from Burke, 227- 

Etiquette, on rules of, 157. 

Eider, mathematician, 193. 

Euripides, 233. 

Evarts, William M., 218. 

Everett, Edward, his self-dispersion, 
78. 

Excellence the reward of labor, 237. 

Exercise, 343. 

Extempore performances, 230, 254. 

Extravagance of living, 314. 



Faber, manufacturer, 98. 

Failure, its miseries, 8 ; excuses for, 

20 ; of merchants, 37, 38, 301-328 ; 

in the professions, 39 ; as a test of 

ability, 45, 46 ; its compensations, 

86 ; its causes, 348. 
Faraday, Professor, his gentleness, 150. 
Fearne, law-writer, 72. 
Fenelon, Bishop, his manner, 148 ; his 

courtesy, 154. 
Ferguson, astronomer, 44. 
Ferrara, Andrea, 120. 
Fichte, metaphysician, 246 ; on reso- 
lutions, 128. 
Fielding, Henry, 161. 
Foote, Lundy, 152. 
Fortune, 23, 30, 133. 
Foster, John, on decision, 127, 136 ; 

his painstaking, 232. 
Fowler, brewer, 321. 
Fox, Charles James, his gallantry, 77 ; 

maxim of, 133 ; his manners, 147 ; 

his painstaking, 169 ; his practice in 

speaking, 234. 
Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, 26, 161 ; his 

improvement of time, 273. 
Franklin, Sir John, 154. 



INDEX. 



359 



Frederic the Great, his ignorance, 119 ; 

on Joseph II., 121. 
Fuller, Dr. Andrew, 58. 
Fuller, Dr. Thomas, on method, 166 ; 

on the combats of Shakespeare and 

Ben Jonson, 176. 
Fuseli, 88. 



Galiani, Abbe, 195. 

Galton on eminent men, 28, 29. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, his will, 192. 

Genius denned, 9, 10, 166, 205, 226, 
229 ; does not dispense with labor, 
205, 228, 229 ; old idea of, 229 ; 
works intensely, 255. 

Genteel life, 300. 

Gentleness, its power, 156. 

George, Dr., on Frederic the Great, 
75. 

George IV., 30. 

Getting on, 12, 13, 18. 

Ghosts, 203. 

Gibbon, Edward, 78, 229, 232. 

Girard, Stephen, 292, 293. 

Gladstone, Sir William, his versatility, 
72. 

Goethe, on saying of Archimedes, 93 ; 
on authorship, 106 ; on human aims, 
139 ; on use of opportunities, 275 ; 
on Schiller, 341 ; on his own happi- 
ness, 349 ; on man's mission, 350. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 123. 

Good, Dr. Mason, 273. 

Government and individual action, 88. 

Grant, Ulysses, 11. 

Gray, Thomas, 182. 

Gray, William, merchant, 350. 

Great men, not made by great occa- 
sions, 11 ; Dr. Hunter on, 11 ; of 
low origin, 87, 92 ; pygmies in bodv, 
194, 195. 

Great works, why written, 11. 

Greatness, not attainable by all, 8-12 ; 
the test of, 9 ; acquired unconscious- 
ly, 11 ; its superiority to circum- 
stances, 93. 

Greeley, Horace, 216 ; on helps, 94 ; 
on money-getting, 311. 



Gregory VII., Pope, 92. 

Grote, George, 274. 

Growth necessary to professional suc- 
cess, 260. 

Grundy, Felix, saying of, 325. 

Guthrie, Dr., on Scotch and French 
manners, 151. 

Gymnastics, 347. 



Habit, its power, 159 - 162. 

Hale, Matthew, his laboriousness, 229, 
273. 

Halifax, Earl of, 223. 

Hall, Robert, saying of, 186 ; his econ- 
omy of strength, 262 ; his first ser- 
mon, 249. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 213 ; on mem 
tal differences of men, 165 ; on genius, 
166 ; his intense application, 338. 

Hamilton, " Single Speech," 244. 

Hammond, Dr., 43. 

Handel, 40, 207. 

Hannibal, his power of will, 190. 

Happiness, 5-7, 162. 

Hardships, 85, 89. 

Harvard and Oxford boat-race, 238. 

Havelock, 110, 208. 

Hawthorne, on shyness, 142 ; his shy- 
ness, 151 ; his painstaking, 233. 

Hayne, Robert Y., his debate with 
Webster, 252. 

^Hazlitt, William, on actors, 10 ; on 
men of genius, 10 ; on choice of call- 
ing, 37 ; on variety of pursuits, 67, 
68 ; on Kean's acting, 103 ; on busi- 
ness, 162 ; on manner, 144 ; on self- 
assurance, 181 ; on Pope's crooked> 
ness, 195 ; his laboriousness, 232. 

Health, a part of talent, 55 ; neces* 
sary to authors, 58 ; often lacked by 
great men, 60 ; essential in the pro- 
fessions, 61, 62. 

Helps, Arthur, on accuracy, 169. 

Helps, a disadvantage, 89. 

Henry, Professor, 67. 

Herbert, George, on money-getting, 
286. 



INDEX. 



Heyne, classicist, 229. 

Hobbes, Thomas, metaphysician, 68. 

Holmes, Oliver W., on pluck, 237. 

Hogarth, 48. 

Homer, 11. 

Hooker, Dr. Richard, 229; his "Ec- 
clesiastical Polity," 11. 

Hope, 6. 

Horner, Sir Francis, 15, 16. 

Hudson, railway king, 290. 

Hume, David, his scepticism, 40 ; on 
cheerfulness, 162 ; his industry, 227. 

Humility, 184, 186. 

Hunter, Dr. John, on great men, 11. 

Huntington, Bishop, on manners, 158. 

I. 

"If," its significance, 9, 10. 

Imitation, in business, 100 ; in litera- 
ture, 101, 106, 107. 

Incompatibility of pursuits, 80. 

Indecision, 136. 

Independence of thought, 84. 

Individuality, 81 ; American lack of, 
95, 96. 

Industry, 13. 

Ingram, Mr. , publisher of " Illustrated 
News," 153. 

Invalids, famous, 60. 

Invention, 31. 

Irving, "Washington, on modest merit, 
186. 

Ismail, Muley, 36. 



J. 

Jacks-at-all-trades, 70, 82. 

Jerrold, Douglas, 76 ; his will, 220 ; 
on ugly trades, 237 ; on debt, 303. 

Jesting, 145. 

Jesuits, their method of education, 44. 

Jewell, Bishop, 229. 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, on the elder 
Sheridan, 19 ; on incivility, 145 ; his 
gruffness, 156 ; on writing, 173 ; on 
Samuel Butler, 226, 227 ; satirized 
by Peter Pindar, 265 ; anecdote of, 
279 ; on opulence, 288 ; on debt, 
301 ; his dread of insanity, 343. 



Jonquil, painter, 47. 

Jonson, Ben, 176. 

Joseph II., of Austria, 121. 



Karnes, Lord, on habit, 161. 

Kane, Dr. Elisha Kent, 219 ; on sy» 

tern, 168. 
Kant, metaphysician, 78. 
Kean, Edmund, 10, 103 ; on acting, 

201. 
Keats, on failure, 7, 198. 
Kenyon, Lord, 210. 
Kepler, 92. 
Kingsley, Canon, on Sir Sidney Smith, 

154. 
Knowledge, always useful, 77 ; its o*Ha 

and ends valuable, 278. 
Knox, John, 58. 



Labor necessary to happiness, 34. 

Lafitte, banker, 321. 

La Harpe, 135. 

Lamb, Charles, on leisure, 35, 340 ; ot 

his poverty, 290. 
Laplace, his lack of practicality, 

119. 
Latimer, 58. 
Law, George, 41. 
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 43. 
Le Brun, 42. 

Ledyard, traveller, his decision, 139. 
Legislation a cause of bankruptcies, 

325. 
Leisure, needed by professional men, 

259 ; sometimes a curse, 27, 35, 36, 

266. 
Leslie, Charles Robert, on instruction 

in painting, 88. 
Lessing, on truth, 6 ; on a poetaster, 

37. 
Lewes, George H, on circumstances, 

93. 
Leyden, John, 44, 337. 
Liberality in business, 319 - 322. 
Life, 3, 4, 26, 239. 



INDEX. 



361 



Limp people, 91. 

Liston, actor, 47. 

Livingston, Edward, his destroyed 
MSS., 224. 

Lobsters. Auman, 84. 

Locke, John, his economy of time, 
273. 

Lorillard, Jacoh, 312. 

Lorraine, Claude, 44. 

Louis XIV., 241. 

Lubbock, Sir John, 274. 

Lucian, fable of, 81. 

Luck, good and bad, 19 - 33, 306 ; an 
abused word, 20 ; Rothschild on, 
23 ; credited only with men's vices 
and disasters, 24 ; celebrated believ- 
ers in, 25 ; Cicero on, 25 ; Caesar on, 

25 ; extraordinary instances of, 25, 

26 ; fame dependent on, 26 ; Riche- 
lieu on, 31. 

Luther, 58. 

Lytton, Sir E. Bulwer, on education, 
47 ; his failures, 195 ; on money, 
284, 298 ; on poverty and neediness, 
298 ; on the power to do good,, 14. 



M. 

Macaulay, Lord, on the Duke of Mon- 
mouth, 120 ; contrasted with Bacon, 
245. 

Macclesfield, Lord, 149. 

Macdonough, Commodore John, 74. 

Machiavelli, 122. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, his indecision, 
137, 138. 

Mahon, Lord, on Sir Robert Walpole, 
118. 

Mammon-worship, 327, 328. 

Mann, Horace, on health, 63. 

Manner, 141-158 ; a test of character, 
143 ; in preaching, 144 ; in oratory, 
144, 149 ; of military men, 154 ; 
should be a part of education, 155. 

Manners, Scotch and French con- 
trasted, 151. 

Mansfield, Lord, 211 ; his delivery, 
148 ; his translations, 226. 

Marengo, battle of, 199. 
16 



Marlborough, Duke of, 25 ; his man- 
ners, 146, 147. 

Marmontel, on the Abbe Galiani, 195. 

Marshall, Chief Justice, 78. 

Maseres, Baron, 76. 

Massena, Marshal, 248. 

Matsys, Quintin, 189. 

Meanness in business dealings, 319, 
320. 

Medical practitioners, 212. 

Mediocre abilities, a reason for effort, 
13 ; often highly successful, 14, 17, 
92. 

Meditation, 258. 

Men of genius hard workers, 228. 

Mendelssohn, his precocity, 45 ; on 
musical composition, 225. 

Mental stimulants, 53. 

Mercantile failures, their causes, etc., 
304-328. 

Merchants, the qualifications they 
need, 324, 325. 

Metastasio on habit, 160. 

Method, 166-168. 

Mill, John S. , on eccentricity, 96 ; his 
versatility, 72. 

Miller, Hugh, 273. 

Miller, Joe, anecdote from, 24. 

Milton, John, as a humorist, 68 ; on 
his studies, 229. 

Mirabeau, 200 ; his charm of manner, 
147. 

Moliere, 231. 

Moltke, 208. 

Money, its use and abuse, 280 - 303 ; 
useless unless earned, 87 ; its attrac- 
tions, 281 ; the spur to industry, 
283, 284 ; a means of power and in- 
fluence, 284, 285 ; why desirable, 
285 ; its value in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, 286 ; miseries caused by lack 
of, 286. 

Money-getting, a legitimate pursuit, 
280 ; a means of discipline, 284 ; 
sometimes a duty, 287 ; when un- 
healthy, 293 ; the art of, 294 ; its 
advantages as a pursuit, 295. 

Monmouth, Duke of, 120. 

Montagu, Mary Wortley, on "getting 
on," 18 : on differences in men, 106. 



362 



IND^X. 



Moore, Sir John, 27. 

Moore, Thomas, his person, 195 ; his 

painstaking, 232. 
More, Sir Thomas, 229. 
Morton, Marcus, 192. 
Mott, Dr. Valentine, his advice to his 

students, 152. 
Murillo, painter, 42. 
Murray, Dr. Alexander, 337. 



N. 



Napier, Sir Charles, on debt, 301. 

Napoleon I., 43 ; on destiny, 33 ; his 
youthful amusements, 40 ; on health, 
57 ; on war, 75 ; his attention to 
details, 111 - 113 ; his campaign of 
1805, 113, 114 ; his decision in the 
field, 130 ; his strategy at the Lake 
of Garda, 130, 132; his delay at 
Ligny, 132 ; his love of system, 167 ; 
his punctuality, 171 ; his force of 
will, 190 ; his nickname, 194 ; his 
reserved power, 247 ; his opinion of 
Massena, 248 ; his Imperial Guard, 
239 ; his defeat at Waterloo, 239. 

Neander, theologian, 75. 

Nelson, Lord, 25, 32, 43 ; his boyish 
amusements, 40 ; on punctuality, 
171 ; his small stature, 194. 

Nervous men, their need of rest, 264. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 78 ; his destroyed 
MSS., 224 ; his great discovery, 278 ; 
his application, 337. 

Nicolly, Alexander, 337. 

Northcote, James, on French and Ital- 
ian paintings, 248. 



o. 

Obstacles, 219. 

One-ideaism, 75 - 77. 

Originality in aims and methods, 77 - 
106 ; necessary in business, 99 - 101 ; 
and in literature, 101 - 106 ; defined, 
103. 

Opie, painter, 279 ; his self-dissatis- 
faction, 234. 

Oratory, 234, 235. 



Overtrading, 3(9, 310. 

Overwork and under-rest, 262, 329- 
345 ; excuses Io~, 338-341 ; its ef- 
fects on the brair, 544 : its remedies, 
343. 



P. 



Paley, Dr. William, 229 ; on habit, 
160. 

Parsons, Chief Justice, 254. 

Partnerships in business, 319. 

Pascal, 43, 229 ; on disease, 53. 

Patience, 221 ; examples of, 224, 225. 

Patient labor, 206 - 208. 

Patton, Dr. W. W., on reserved pow- 
er, 257. 

Paul, the Apostle, his courtesy, 156. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 118, 235. 

Pelissier, his coolness, 134. 

Penn, Sir William, on industry, 13. 

Perseverance, 195. 

Pestalozzi, on self-help, 94. 

Peterborough, Lord, on Fenelon, 154. 

Peter Pindar, on Dr. Johnson, 265. 

Petrarch, 231. 

Phalaris controversy, 250 - 252. 

Phillips, Wendell, on the game of life, 
28. 

Physical culture, 52 - 64 ; its neglect, 
52 ; among the Greeks and Romans, 
56 ; Cicero's attention to, 56 ; Eng- 
lish attention to, 59 ; Horace Mann 
on, 63. 

Physical defects, their compensations, 
193, 194. 

Picton, Sir Thomas, his decision, 139. 

Pitt, William, on Canning, 73 ; his 
concentration, 73 ; his painstaking, 
226 ; his division of work, 261. 

Pliny, 200. 

Poe, Edgar A., 104. 

Poets, their physical vigor, 60, 61. 

Politeness, 144, 145. 

Pope, Alexander, 43 ; on Wharton, 81, 
82 ; his pygmy size, 195 ; his indus- 
try, 273 ; an early sexagenarian, 331. 

Poverty, its temptations and dangers, 
281, 282 ; Dr. Johnson on, 286 ; rela- 
tive, 298. 



E*DEX. 



363 



Practical talent, 115 - 126. 

Praed, Winthrop Macworth, on a vic- 
ar's talk, 79. 

Preachers, hints to, 257. 

I esence of mind, 135. 
•ofessions and callings, choice of, 34 - 
51, 307 ; Hazlitt on, 37 ; predilec- 
tions for, 39, 40, 47, 48 ; determined 
by trifles or early impressions, 40 ; 
aptitudes for, 42 ; not to be hastily 
changed, 48, 49, 313, 314 ; humble 
ones to be ennobled, 50. 
f ofessional culture, 256. 
fonts of trade, 312. 
f operty a hindrance to beginners, 86, 
87. 

Proverbs, 135, 136. 

Punctuality, 169-174. 



Q. 



Quixote, Don, 69. 



R 



Rachel,' actress. 44. 

Racine, 70. 

Rahl, Count, 172. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 30 ; his courtesy 
to Queen Elizabeth, 149. 

Raymond, Henry, journalist, 338. 

Readiness, 174, 254. 

Reserved power, 238 - 267 ; why need- 
ed, 241 ; its advantages, 248. 

Rest, its necessity, 344. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, on industry, 13 ; 
on concentration, 67 ; on facility in 
painting, 248 ; on Rubens, 248. 

Richelieu, Cardinal, on luck, 31. 

Richter, Jean Paul, on the Germans, 
76 ; his note-books, 227 ; on poverty, 
237. 

Robespierre, 196. 

Rochefoucault, 232. 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 208. 

Rothschild, Nathan Myers, 291, 292 ; 
his advice to a brewer, 82. 

Ross, Captain, navigator, 161. 

Rousseau, 231. 



Rubens, 248. 

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, his economy of 

time, 273. 
Ruskin on genius, 12. 



S. 



Sailors, English and French, 59. 

Sainte-Beuve, on the " first talent," 
42. 

Salvator Rosa, 68. 

Sand, George, on Anglo-Saxon shyness, 
151. 

Satirists, 150. 

Saturday Review, on limp people, 
91. 

Savanarola, 196. 

Savings, 296, 297, 299. 

Schiller on the duties of life, 351. 

Scipio Africanus, 68. 

Scott, Sir Walter, his early reading, 
41 ; his imitators, 104 ; on punc- 
tuality, 170 ; his lameness, 194 ; his 
speed in composition, 233 ; his ex- 
cessive labors, 338, 342, 343. 

Second books, 243. 

Self-advertising, 178-187. 

Self-help, 88, 89. 

Self-instruction, 88. 

Self-reliance, 83 - 96. 

Sermons, 257. 

Shakespeare, 11, 176 ; on adversity, 
203 ; his reserved power, 246. 

Shelley, saying of, 9. 

Sheridan, General Philip, 249. 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 145 ; his 
first speech, 198 ; story from one of 
his comedies, 182; his " impromp- 
tus," 230. 

Sherman, William T., his "Great 
March," 113, 114. 

Shyness, Anglo-Saxon, 151. 

Sixtus Y., Pope, 92. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 158, 338. 

Sleep,' 266. 

Smeaton, James, 43, 278. 

Smith, Adam, 78, 123. 

Smith, Rev. Sydney, on life, 26 ; on 
choice of a calling, 39 ; his advice to 



decifc i 

- 



ann 

177. 

Southey. - ..., 227 

Specialties, 9V. 

Speculation, 310, 311. 

St. Bernard, 75. 

Steadman, General, on General G. W. 
Thomas, 114. 

Steele, Sir Richard, on debt, 302. 

Stephenson, George, 118, 119 ; his im- 
provement of time, 273. 

Stevens, editor of Shakespeare, 279. 

Stewart, Alexander, 98. 

"Stickers," 323. 

Strakosch, pianist, 206. 

Stupidity, its compensations, 193. 

Success, 4 ; a test of merit, 4, 5 ; its 
pleasures, 7 ; its degrees, 8 ; a step- 
by-step progress, 12 ; how attainable, 
13, 15 ; attainable by mediocre abil- 
ity, 14 ; won by the meritorious, 17 ; 
at the bar, 22; demands concentra- 
tion, 65, 70 ; demands health, 55, 63, 
64 ; promoted by social intercourse, 
75 ; qualities it demands, 120 ; when 
too dear, 77, 347 ; true and false, 346 
- 351 ; not an end, 346 ; when unsuc- 
cessful, 346. 

Sulla, 32. 

Suwarrow, his will, 190. 

Swift, Dean, 122, 250, 332 



T. 



Tacon, chief of police, his decision, 
140. 

Tact, 121. 

Taglioni, her labors, 206. 

Taine, M., on the development of tal- 
ents, 24. 

Talent and tact. 121. 



-■■'. tees, 17. 

j Tailed . 211 

I Taimt:. 

iienry, on rnone^ 
any, 229. . 

JTemp] 

:38. 

: The wo 

iral George 
Is, 114. 

Thomas, Judge on -ebster'g 

reply to Hayne, 252. 

Thoreau, his first book, 294. 

Thorwalsden, sculptor, his "Mer- 
cury," 103. 

Thurlow, Lord, 210 ; on success at the 
bar, 86 ; denies a commissionership 
to John Scott (Lord Eldon), 86. 

Time, economy of, 268 - 279. 

Torstenson, General, 219. 

Tournefort, naturalist, 43, 278. 

Townsend, Lord, his nickname, 50. 

Trifles, 145, 146. 

Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 180. 

Turner, painter, his conscientiousness, 
110 ; on hard work, 234. 



u. 

Universal scholars, 65. 

Unlucky persons, 19 ; their excuses, 

20. 
Utility the standard of actions, 14. 



Varro, Terentius, 199 

Vernet, Horace, 200. 

Vestris, dancing-master, 75. 

Vinci, Leonardo da, his versatility, 
68. 

Violinist, first and second contrast- 
ed, 1. 

Voltaire, 40 ; on La Harpe, 135. 



INDEX. 



365 



w. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 118. 

Walton, Isaak, on riches, 290. 

Ward, Artemus, on oratory, 175. 

Washington, George, his politeness, 
157 ; his punctuality, 172 ; his will, 
199 ; his economy, 299. 

Waterloo, battle of, 191, 239, 241. 

Watt, James, 278. 

Wayland, Francis, his early struggles, 
197. 

Wealth, how acquired, 271 ; does not 
always confer happiness, 288, 290. 

Weber, 338. 

Webster, Daniel, his failure in decla- 
mation, 196 ; his reply to Hayne, 
252 ; his habits of labor, 265 ; his 
use of an anecdote, 276. 

Webster, Noah, 166. 

Weed, Thurlow, his early trials, 215, 
217. 

Wellington, Duke of, 11, 33 ; at Water- 
loo, 132 ; his attention to details, 
113 ; his avoidance of quarrels, 154, 
155 ; his will, 191 ; his dissatisfac- 
tion with the army, 208 ; his econo- 
my, 299. 

Wells, Walter, on economy of physical 
force, 261. 

Wesley, John, on whiling away time, 
276. 

West, Benjamin, 40. 

Whewell, Professor, on great inven- 
tions, 31. 

Whiling away time, 276- 279. 



Whipple, John, on Daniel Webster's 
habits of labor, 266. 

White, Henry Kirke, 273. 

Whitefield, George,166. 

Wilberforce, Sir William, 148. 

Wilkes, John, his manners, 147. 

Wilkie, David, 44. 

Will, power of, 12, 188, 189, 219. 

William III. of England, 119. 

Willmott, Rev. Robert A., on single- 
ness of purpose, 68, 69. 

Wilson, Henry, Senator, his early 
trials, 215. 

Winans, manufacturer, 153, 154. 

Wirt, William, on Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, 78 ; on bits of knowledge, 275. 

Wisdom, 118. 

Witherspoon, Dr., on courtesy, 156. 

Wolfe, James, his capture of Quebec, 
220. 

Wordsworth, William, 192. 

Work not an intrinsic good, 329, 330, 
331. 

Workingmen, their lack of thrift, 295, 
296. 

Wotton, William, 250. 



Xenophon and Socrates, 41. 



Yankees, their will, 192. 
Yates, Senator, on Grant's genius, 11, 
12. 



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